Of the Species
by Hamilcar
Summary: First movie AU. Rather than attacking Mary Jane, Norman decides to eliminate Peter a different way, by combining their powers to give him an edge. He experiments on Harry to do so, with unexpected consequences for all involved. P/H. N/H. Dark-fic.
1. An Alternative

OOO

_He can beat your strength alone. That is because he has strength of his own. But if the two could be combined… _

The insidious whisper filled Norman Osborn's head but he no longer tried to deny the voice. No, the Goblin had done far too much for him. The distinction between them was false at best – and what was the point when being the Goblin made him so much more?

No, the voice was right. Parker had strength. And it didn't take much to figure out where he'd gotten it.

"But we don't know," Norman whispered back to the empty room. "We don't know how it will react with the formula. It could be dangerous. It could kill us."

_The formula was unproven as well._

"This isn't the same."

Then Harry came home like a dog with its tale between its legs, shoulders slumping, reciting a story of woe about Peter loving Mary Jane. And as he embraced his son and gave him false comfort, the voice murmured again.

_He is the answer. He can test it. _

"It will be alright, son." Norman assured Harry. "I'll make it up to you. Right the wrongs. Rebuild our relationship."

Harry was smiling when a moment later Norman's hand closed like a vice over his wrist and dragged him over to the mirror.

OOO

When Harry woke from his blackout, he found himself in a glass chamber. Beyond the glass he could see glimmering metal racks, outfitted with what he assumed were weapons. Shuddering, he then noticed his reflection in the curved surface of the glass. H stumbled back with a gasp, realizing that he'd been stripped down to his underwear.

Had his father done this? No. That would be too creepy.

It was a dream. It had to be.

First he pinched himself, but that failed to wake him. Then he scratched his arms until he scored the skin, but the vision failed to disappear. It was only after throwing himself into the glass wall and tumbling back down, his shoulder aching, that he began to accept the idea that it might be real.

"Dad?" He called out. This had to be a mistake, he thought. His father would get him out of this. Even if he was embarrassed to be seen in his underwear, better than being stuck in a glass tube. "Dad?!" He called louder when there was no response, his voice echoing weirdly against the glass. He wondered how soundproof it was, if anybody could even hear him.

How had he ended up in here anyway?

Trying to keep calm he sat down on the floor of the chamber. So he was in a weird secret room in some kind of glass tube, practically naked. There had to be an explanation. Maybe… maybe he'd stumbled into the room? Maybe there was contamination of some sort and getting rid of his clothing and quarantining him was the only solution?

That had to be it. It was for his own safety. Then his neck began to tingle and, peering at the reflection in the glass, he noticed a red, swollen patch of skin from a bite of some sort. Maybe that was it, he reasoned. Maybe he'd gone poking around a lab and gotten bitten by something and now he might be infected somehow.

Except, a lingering voice in the back of his mind whispered, except he hadn't gone poking around any labs. He'd come home… he'd seen Peter with Mary Jane and then he'd come home and met his father and then…

"Dad!" He called out again, starting to panic and trying to force down the memories that were drifting back.

His father's hand on his wrist, the mirror, he was being dragged, the room, something against his neck and then…

"DAD!" He pounded the glass with his fists, nearly breaking his hands. Frustrated, he slid down the glass and back onto the floor. It was starting to get cold and he wished he had anything, even a robe or a sheet, to cover up.

The room, the pinch of an injection, then darkness…

Then this.

He touched the spot where the bite was again and a wave of nausea hit him. There were no corners in the chamber but he knelt off to one side, hoping that if he vomited, it wouldn't get everywhere. Leaning against the glass, he started to dry heave when he heard a voice.

"My apologies Harry. It took me some time to find what I needed."

"Dad!" He propped himself up against the glass, tossing away any concerns or accusations in favor of simply getting out. "Dad, thank God! You've got to get me out of here! I think I got bitten by something…"

"You did." Norman suddenly appeared in front of the chamber, holding a large vial of a lurid green fluid. "One of our experimental spiders, to be exact. I left it in the chamber while you were sleeping and removed it once it had done its job. You crushed it while I was busy, unfortunately, but it had fulfilled its purpose."

"Its purpose?" Harry pressed his hands against the glass, frowning. His father wasn't opening the chamber and he was beginning to dislike the thread of their conversation. "This wasn't…"

"An accident?" Norman grinned. "No Harry. I'm afraid not. You see – I think it's time you started to grow up Harry. Get involved in the family business. Help out your dear old dad. I'm doing this for your own good, you know."

"Doing what?" Harry's voice escalated in pitch. "What is this, some kind of experiment?! I don't want to do this, now get me out!"

"Shhhh, Harry." Norman pressed a few buttons on a consol near the chamber and inserted the green vial into part of the machinery.

"What are you doing?" He looked over at the green fluid and felt faint. "Take that out of there! What are you doing!" He slapped the glass with his hands, though he knew it wouldn't break and doubted his father would stop.

"Helping you out Harry. Making you… better."

"I don't want to be better, I want to leave!" He pleaded. "Let me out, we'll pretend this never happened…"

"You mean you don't want to one-up that runty little friend of yours, Parker?" Norman taunted.

"Pete?" Harry frowned and stood back. "What's Pete got to do with this?"

"You mean you live with the brat and you haven't figured it out by now?" Norman scoffed. "He's Spider-Man, you idiot. He's stealing your girl, he's ruining my – no, _our_ – business, interfering with my plans… I'd hoped assaulting that fusty aunt of his would convince him that helping instead of hurting was in his best interest, but thanks to you I have a much better idea – and much grander plans. Who better to strike at him than his best friend, after all? He'd never suspect…" Norman's eyes flashed green.

"Have you been taking that stuff?" Harry looked on, horrified to the point where his mind barely processed the idea of Peter as Spider-Man, then realized what was about to happen as his father's hand hovered over a button. "No! No, no, no, _no!_" He screamed and his breathing began to accelerate. "Let me out, I don't want this, let me out!"

"Hush Harry." Norman pressed the button and Harry froze at the sound of hydraulics pumping, coming to life. "As I said, it's for your own good."

Harry pounded against the glass, ramming into it like an animal in a cage, though he knew it would be to no avail. With a hiss the green gas poured in from every side, creeping down his nose and mouth, into his lungs, burning, suffocating. At first he tried to hold his breath, pinch his nose shut, but it was everywhere, getting into his system through every seam and orifice in his body, setting his veins on fire. Overcome, he passed out onto the floor of the chamber as the verdant billows obscured his body.

OOO

When the process was finished and the gas dissipated, Norman opened the chamber and retrieved the body of his son. He hadn't died which was a positive first step towards the treatments being combined. And luckily he was unconscious; Norman had been wary that the boy would attack him like he'd attacked Stromm, but the doses he'd given Harry together with the bite had apparently overwhelmed his system. The man also noted with distaste that sometime before he'd passed out, Harry had puked.

"Always cleaning up your messes," he muttered.

He took Harry over to a table and strapped him down, hooking him up to testing equipment to measure his various vital signs. Once he was finished, Norman double-checked the straps. It might be a while before Harry realized how grateful he ought to be and he didn't want the boy causing a scene and wrecking anything in the interim.

As he checked he noticed that the formula was already beginning to work its reshaping skill on Harry's body. Already his torso was tightening and faint evidence of muscular was beginning to emerge.

Norman leered and traced a finger down Harry's side. All that remained was to make sure that Harry stayed the faithful son while he made sure he could safely treat himself, and ensure that Harry would do what he needed to in order to become Norman's strong right hand and help his father take care of the problem that Peter presented.

While Harry rested, Norman cleaned up the lab, discarding the materials into hazardous waste containers without ever realizing the spider had a surfeit of X chromosomes.

OOO

A/N: As indicated in an earlier story, I'm trying my hand at a much darker P/H fic that includes a little N/H. So this fic will be going up in rating pretty quickly to M. It is going to deal with gender-twisting and the like, but I'm not looking to create a typical mpreg or girl!Harry fic. Rather, I'm hoping to explore the darker side of what it might mean to mix DNA types and issues of changing identity, control, manipulation and such.

So we'll see how it goes. And if you waiting on other fics – they're being written/beta-ed. Promise.


	2. Perfect Possibilities

OOO

When he woke up, Harry found that the nausea had cleared and the dizziness he'd felt before collapsing had fled. In fact, he was seeing much clearer than before. This sharpness of perception didn't stop with his sight, either: all of his senses seemed heightened, the sensory input hitting him like a strike to his head. Disoriented, he attempted to sit up and clear his head - only to be stopped by the metal braces around his arms. A panicky moment passed the recollection of the previous night came to him in bursts of remembrance.

The gas. The bit. His father. His father had done this.

Throwing all of his weight against the bands, he tried to sit up.

"Don't bother. They'll hold." The clipped voice of Norman Osborn echoed in the lab.

"What did you do!"

"Do try to relax." His face came into view and he patted Harry's shoulder. "You're throwing off the machine's measurements."

"Get me out!" He pushed again but the bands failed to budge. He didn't understand quite what was happening and his brain seemed to refuse to process the fact that his father was looming in front of him, happily accepting responsibility. His mind had, however, gone into overdrive with the desire to escape and, inexplicably, find a dark corner in which to hide.

"You see, Harold, this has always been your problem. Such a whiner." He looked at his son distastefully, as if seeing him was enough to remind him of what a disappointment he was.

And despite the circumstances, despite the inherent worry that should have accompanied the entire situation, the look he gave his son made Harry quail and turn away shamefaced.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," he snapped. "Do what I need you to do!"

The demands of the previous evening came to the forefront.

"Peter?" He asked uncertainly.

"Peter," came the vicious echo.

"But he's my friend! He hasn't done anything!"

"Besides steal your girl?"

"That's not a reason to kill him!" Harry pressed against the bands, less fervently, though his eyes grew wider. "It's just a... a misunderstanding! Besides, you were the one who was upset I was with her in the first place!"

"With all of those statements showing how much of a naive child you really are. It's not about the girl - it's about you getting what you want. You will never be anything in this world if you let people simply come up to you and take what you have away from you. You need to hold on to it, clutch it to you and refuse to let it go. And for those who cross you," he leered, "then they should learn to never do it again." He turned away sharply to another machine and glanced at the readout. "Besides, this isn't always about you. He refused _me_, refused the chance I gave him to stand at my side."

"You've killed people," Harry whispered. "At the fair. You killed people!" _Nearly including me_, his thoughts added silently.

"Oh please. Spare me your moralizing. If you think even one person who's gotten to where I have has lily-white hands then you really are too stupid to deserve to survive in this world. Sadly, Parker is of the same mold and refuses to see reason. You I can at least pity - it was my failure to bring you up properly that has made you so blind and obstinate. Parker however... no, I cannot change him. All I can do is eliminate him."

He sat down on the metal slab and looked down on his son. "Which means you luckily get a chance to redeem yourself. Make up to me all those years of failure, the shame of watching you drop out of school after school, of knowing you'd never be able of following in my footsteps. You can finally make me proud of you."

His finger traced the length of Harry's newly muscled bicep, causing the boy to shudder and turn away.

"I... I can't. Pete's my buddy, I can't!"

The saccharine coaxing expression crumpled into a mask of rage.

"Very well. I have tasks I must attend to." He stood up abruptly and strode towards the exit. "We'll see if perhaps some time alone to contemplate will help you to see reason."

OOO

Even when the overhead lights were shut off the lab was not completely dark. Instead, the glow from the machines cast weird shadows and, as his eyes adapted to th dimmer environment, Harry could see weird shapes, wires and metal racks, out of the edges of his vision, granted a particular strangeness in the half-light he'd been left in that they didn't have when fully lit.

Norman had been gone for ages - hours, at least, though he couldn't say how long as, despite the myriad technologies in the place, a clock was not within his line of vision however he turned. The time in the dark seemed to distort as well and he drifted into sleeping now and again to make the time pass. It didn't seem to matter, however. No matter how long he waited, his father never came.

Time elapsed, however much it was, and Harry began to feel hunger tickling at his stomach, gradually overwhelming the lingering nausea he'd been trying to suppress. As soon as he started to think about how long it had been since he'd eaten, his mouth grew dry as well. The lab even seemed to become colder, as though his body was failing to warm the metal and it was instead chilling him. He wished he'd had a blanket and would have wished for clothing as well, save that the whole 'being undressed' situation was another facet of the entire weird experience that he chose not to focus on, for the sake of his own anxieties. He would have had to go to the bathroom tooe, save for a catheter - another humiliation, Harry felt, that he didn't wish to consider.

His limbs were becoming sore, a feeling that gradually spread throughout his body. He wasn't sure whether it was from the lack of anything to eat or the inability to shift into a more comfortable position or the cold or...

Or whatever was happening to him.

This he tried to ignore as well, though his father's own obviously altered body (_and mind?_) and, apparently if his father's assertions were to be believed, Peter's made it frighteningly clear that something was going to happen. Every so often, even when his father was not present, the machines would beep as if to remind him of this fact, that his body, fast or slow, was changing.

His senses had changed, that much he knew, and his wrists tingled, not quite an itch but enough to be annoying. If he was stronger, he couldn't tell - the bands never gave no matter how much he pressed and he wondered how long his father might have been planning something like this, for him or for Peter, if such restraints were at the ready. Yet he knew his muscles were more defined, that there was shape and definition where there hadn't been before. He recalled seeing shots of Spider-Man twisting and leaping and wondered if he could do that well. His muscles burned as though they wanted exercise and he longed to try.

There were other, deeper aches and sensations as well, but Harry closed his eyes against them and tried to sleep, tried to have another few hours in which he wouldn't have to think about the sudden, sharp turn his life had apparently taken.

While he fitfully slid to get as comfortable as he could, the minutes and hours ticked on.

OOO

"Are you ready to cooperate now?" Norman looked at Harry with the same contempt he'd worn three nights ago.

By then Harry was pale and the cold seemed to have gotten worse. He wondered if his father had lowered the temperature deliberately to increase his discomfort but he was too exhausted to be angry. His skin was paler and Harry, who'd never gone without a meal in his life, felt as though he were starving. He remembered Peter telling him something about survival rates without water being a week and without food even longer, but he felt this couldn't be true; his body was surely going to pass out or die if he went much longer.

Peter... Peter. A complicated thought.

"Please," Harry begged. "Can I just have something to drink? Or a blanket? It's _cold _in here."

Norman sighed, exasperated. "As I said, always whining." He looked at Harry's wrists and frowned. "Chaffed. You've been trying to escape." Harry made no reply. "If you had agreed to do what I asked in the first place, this wouldn't be happening."

"If I agreed...!" He turned in spontaneous anger, momentarily outraged at the gall to blame him. Accusations that Norman was the one who'd decided to use him as fodder for an experiment were on the tip of his tongue, but he silenced them when he saw Norman's expression.

As ever, his father held all the cards and getting angry at him would only exacerbate the situation.

Leaning down Norman hissed into his son's ear.

"And if your so-called 'friend' had cooperated, I wouldn't have a need to use you."

There was no logic to his manipulations, Harry knew in the back of his mind. It was all blaming the victims for his own cruelty.

But he was his father. And he held the power. And it was nearly easier to be angry at Peter or himself, displace the anger in the interests of escape.

"You know he hasn't even asked for you. Probably with Mary Jane. He probably doesn't even notice you're missing."

A lie. Peter had come around twice, but there was no reason to let Harry know that.

"How long have I been here?" Harry asked in an uncertain voice.

"Long enough." _The less information the better. Let him be disoriented. _"I can see you're suffering," Norman's voice dripped with faux-sympathy. "But I am not indifferent to my own son. You needed chastisement - it was for your own good. Agree to be obedient though, and I will undo those and help you to be stronger than ever before, become a man and take your place next to me."

Harry's body convulsed, from cold and from hunger. "I just want out," he begged.

"Promise me Harry," he hissed, his mood abruptly shifting. "I will do nothing if you do not. And do not make an empty promise to get out of this. If you lie to me... if you lie to me boy, I will find you and take you down. And the next time things will be even rougher for you, I promise you that. And I keep my promises."

The danger in his words paled, at least seemingly, to the suffering Harry felt he was going through. "Fine!" He gasped. "Just let me out!"

His father gripped his arm like a vice and Harry felt his nails dig into his arm.

"_You'd better not be lying._"

The bands snapped open and Harry tried to sit up, yanking out the various tubes and wires connected to him with a jerk. As he did, however, his muscles wobbled and black specks crowded the edges of his vision. Forcing himself upright, he passed out only to be caught by Norman, in whose arms he found himself moments later. He stared up at his father through bleary eyes, contrite when he saw how disgusted his father looked yet again.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. "I haven't..." His head lolled to the side and Norman heaved a sigh, as though it was nothing more than what he'd expected.

"Where would you be," he asked the unconscious boy, "without your father to look after you?"

He stretched him out on a cot, and looked at him with guarded approval. Perhaps he was finally coming around and would prove himself useful. He pulled a blanket around the boy and lowered the lights again, casting him one last look from the doorway, smiling as he shivered under the cloth.

Such potential for perfect genetic combinations, he thought. The serum that had shaped him and the spider that had affected Parker... the delicate features of the only woman he'd condescended to marry and the image he so admired of himself... such scope for narcissism, such _possibility_...

"You had better not disappoint me again." The warning disrupted the silence as he shut and locked the door.

OOO


	3. Tangled Web

OOO

For the second time, Harry found himself waking in the laboratory, thankfully released from his bonds but hungrier than ever. Sitting up, still slightly faint, he saw that his father had left him something to eat. It only appeared to be some type of nutritional bar and a glass of a sports drink of some sort. The food was less than filling but better than starving. He supposed his father was attempting to put him on some kind of regimen and longed for a cheeseburger while chewing the tasteless bar, before berating himself. '_Lucky to have anything at all_,' he told himself, _'and don't go thinking about anything else because it will only make things worse.'_

He finished the bars and the drink, down to the last crumbs and drops, before exploring the lab more fully. His father didn't seem to be present and didn't respond to calls so Harry assumed that he was alone. Wrapping himself in the blanket, his only form of clothing beyond his undergarments, he walked over to the machines he'd been hooked up to however long ago.

The machine was on but was intimidatingly complex and few of the readouts made any sense to Harry. _'Peter would understand this,'_ he thought, and then shook his head. Peter couldn't help him, didn't want to help him if his father was to be believed.

Of course, his father would probably say that he should be able to help himself. That was yet another thing he found himself hapless at doing, one more instance to add to the list where he was defeated before he even began. He wondered if he ought to try the door but shot the idea down without even walking towards the exit; his father would never be that careless and had warned him not to leave, doubtless putting measures into place to make sure no attempts had been made.

Which left him where, Harry wondered. Locked in a lab, nowhere to go, no way of escaping, his only contact being his father who seemed to be increasingly unstable. His body shook briefly at the thought of what that might entail. And as for the experiments…

He looked down at his hands. Peter was Spider-man? It didn't seem possible; but as his father persisted in observing, he was far from the brightest person. It was possible he hadn't noticed. And perhaps that was a hopeful sign; Peter had obviously not been altered so badly. The powered might even be a bit, well, _cool_. Sitting down on the slab he'd slept on, Harry thought back to the news footage and pictures he'd seen of Spider-Man 'web slinging' as they called it.

Retreating to a corner of the lab with as-of-yet unstocked metal racks, Harry stuck his wrists out. Nothing happened and he looked down at the skin, puzzled. Did he need to contract his muscles somehow? Was it a thought process? Perhaps he hadn't developed web-powers in the same way Peter had or perhaps they weren't powers at all but something else, a product of Peter's own invention instead of a natural development.

Another try and the point was moot; thick strands of webbing shot onto the ceiling, narrowly missing his face. Circumstance forgotten with the excitement of the discovery, Harry enthusiastically experimented, trying to control length and direction with varying success. Strands of webbing hung all around as he tried over and over, climbing up some and trying to form shapes with others. Bit by bit, he clumsily built a web. It was misshapen but altogether not bad for a first try, Harry thought.

Spurred by a sudden impulse, he climbed into the web. The first step was tentative, as he questioned whether the slender lines could hold his weight. They barely sagged, however, so he clambered up onto the web, leaving the blanket behind as it tended to stick to the webbing. His bare skin against the threads, he closed his eyes and felt them vibrate from even the slightest breezes from the room's ventilation. Reclining in the center of a gigantic web suddenly seemed the most natural, soothing thing to do in the world. It almost made the lab feel _homey_.

The strangeness of such a thought was disregarded as Harry found himself smiling. Warmth rushed through him, a sense of comfort and rightness that he'd rarely ever experienced, a sense only present in a few, ever brief, halcyon moments when he deceived himself into thinking the apartment was a place he and Peter could relax, alone, with no intrusions, no bad memories of terse meals or impending threats of parental visits. A haven where he could be alone.

His father was never far away, however, here least of all. A twinge in his mind told Harry to sit up and he rapidly shot out more intersecting lines, a lace-like formation that obstructed him from view. Then he scrambled to the upper most corner of the web, looking down and breathing nervously.

"Harold?" His father's voice came from beyond the curtain of webbing. "I see you've been busy."

There was a note of amusement in his voice, as if he couldn't believe Harry had worked out his body for himself, but Harry tried to think there might be a small note of pride mixed in as well, that he'd defied some expectation and won at least a little respect.

Tugging and brushing the webs aside, Norman drew near and looked up at Harry.

"Stop playing games and get down from there," Norman demanded. Obligingly, Harry lowered himself on a line of webbing, touching the ground right in front of his father who looked at him with a sneer. He figured out how to work them but here he was, fooling around and resting instead of training to catch up and cover lost ground.

_More flies with honey, Norman_, came the echo.

"Well done," Norman said with a half-genuine smirk, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"Really?" Harry looked up at him with the enthusiastic and praise-hungry look of a child bringing home an art project. "I mean, it's my first one and I know it's a bit lopsided and I had to do some of it over twice, but I really didn't think it was that bad and it didn't take him all that long to make either, probably less than a half-hour, though I can't really tell…"

"Shhhh. Enough." Norman's voice stopped just short of impatient as his smile grew more strained. He put a finger in front of his lips and Harry looked slightly crestfallen. "It is a good beginning, but not nearly enough if you want to catch up with Peter."

His enthusiasm collapsed and shattered like a melting ice shelf. "Dad, please, I don't really want…"

"You promise, Harold!" His features twisted into anger, then softened. "Besides, don't you want me to be proud of you? Don't you want to help your father, your father who gave you life and has always supposed you instead of the friend who backstabbed you? Of course if you'd rather not help me…" He allowed the threat to hang in the air.

'_Don't you want to eat?'_ Harry added mentally. Defeated, he stayed silent for a moment, then came a grudging 'yes.'

"Good." His father suddenly reached over and embraced him. "I need to be sure I can trust you, son. Prove yourself worthy of that trust."

The warmth of Norman's body was an unexpected but welcome contrast to the chill of the lab and Harry found his body leaning into his father's, conflicted though his mind was. Norman stroked his back and the muscles began to ease, some of the comfort he'd felt when alone on the web beginning to return.

"I'm still a bit tired," Harry admitted after a moment. "Can I rest? Please?"

Norman gritted his teeth; he wanted to get started.

_Better to be patient. Bring him around slowly and make no mistakes so he will be yours forever. _

"I understand."

"Could I get more to eat too? I'm still pretty hungry. Maybe a burger or something real? You know, like _real_ food?"

"Harold, you can't expect to get into top form on a diet of fast food. I'll think about giving you more but it will be a regulated diet, not that trash you persist on filling your body with," Norman replied tersely.

"Oh." He wavered. "Well, can I at least stay on the web?"

The pleading note had entered his son's voice again and Norman viciously quashed his irritation at it, willing to put up with his son's grating foibles to ensure a larger victory.

"You may."

Harry grinned and hugged his father hard, as if he'd given Harry the keys to a Ferrari. "Thanks, dad!" He jumped back onto the web and perched in the corner once more, filling it out a little more so he could lie down. He closed his eyes as his father gave him a slight nod.

"Of course, Harold."

OOO

When his Aunt May made the comment about his relationship with Mary Jane being obvious, Peter had expected the worst. Frantic, he'd called her that night, fears filling his mind but ultimately proving irrational. She was fine and continued to be so, the Goblin had made no further appearances and Aunt May would return home in a few days.

Instead of problems coming from the superhero half of his life, they seemed to be stemming from more personal matters. Coming back from class for the fifth day, he looked around the apartment.

"Harry?" He called and, as ever, heard nothing but the barely discernable buzz of the apartment's myriad appliances.

_Still not there._ Peter poured himself a glass of iced tea from the fridge then sat down with his homework, setting it aside after only a few moments as he contemplated going out on patrol or at least working down at the library. The apartment felt hollow and empty, even without any guilt weighing on his mind. His high school habits largely unchanged, Harry was there even when he had classes and his absence was palpable.

Wanting to apologize, he'd done everything he could to track Harry down. But his cell phone was off or dead, he didn't seem to be at the Osborn mansion, he hadn't shown up to class and short of stalking and monitoring hotels, Peter didn't know what else he could do. Harry certainly had the resources to disappear if he wanted to, but for this long? Without his father knowing? He'd visited for the third time, but as always, Norman shrugged, said he hadn't seen him, and promised to give Peter a call if he showed up and to let Harry know how worried he was. Peter felt uneasy each time they conversed but, despite the irritating feeling that something wasn't right, the answer was always the same, nonchalant and unconcerned, though Peter couldn't understand how a father could act in such a way.

The disappearance had made things suddenly awkward with Mary Jane as well. It was a minor indiscretion, so she said, just a bit of hand-holding, didn't understand why Harry had evidently taken it rather badly. Whenever they did talk on the phone, she lamented about misleading him, berating herself for what a terrible person she was while making Peter feel even guiltier. Together they speculated uselessly about where he might be, conversations which always ended with both of them not knowing where or how to look and blaming themselves. Peter wondered if it might not be better for both of them if he ignored the phone the next time it rang.

Too distracted to work, he walked upstairs where his suit was stashed. Before he went to his room, however, he paused to look into Harry's. Everything was in the same messy condition he'd left it, undisturbed save for a thin film of dust that had started to settle. His throat beginning to constrict, Peter turned away, locking his door and tugging on his costume with sharp gestures.

The prospect of dating MJ suddenly dimmed if the price was to be his best and oldest friend. Better not to have moved on his desires at all, better to have quashed them before he hurt somebody else.

As he swung over the city he scanned for any sign of crime or any curly brunettes who might be wandering about. "Where are you, Harry?" He muttered to himself as he swung past an office building. His friend had to be somewhere; he couldn't have simply fallen off the face of the earth.

Perched on a gargoyle, Peter looked down at the city. Beyond the inherent worry, and perhaps even more upsetting, was the fact that only he seemed to be concerned. Mary Jane seemed more caught up with her own feelings of guilt in the matter, Norman was utterly blasé about the whole affair and Peter hadn't even told May, out of concern for her condition, not wanting to exacerbate it by having her fretting over Harry. Beyond that small circle, who else did Harry have? It was as if he was the only one worried that Harry might be imperiled.

He considered the first impulse he'd had when May had mentioned his relationship with Mary Jane and wondered if perhaps it should have been Harry he called that night. Could the Goblin have gone after Harry instead? He shook his head; that made no sense. If he had, surely he would have heard something of it by now. The Goblin would have contacted him, threatening, if he was behind the disappearance.

A siren went off and Peter followed the sound. Perhaps he was simply over-reacting. Norman seemed to think so, that much was evident, and maybe he was right. Harry was an adult now. If he wanted to take a week or ten days to go somewhere, cool off, that was his business.

The unsettled feeling failed to disappear, however, and when Peter got home and took off the costume, he went into Harry's room once more, this time removing a pillow. Harry would surely ridicule him if he knew, laugh away Peter's concern, but it was a strange comfort to have something that still vaguely recalled Harry to his senses.

"Miss you," he murmured into the fabric. "Come back home soon, okay?"

Replacing it on the bed, he left to get uneasy sleep. Rest eluded him, however, so he rose after only a few minutes and pulled the costume back on again. Harry often complained about the late nights his father kept, so he doubted Norman would be asleep yet. Gathering up a change of clothes for when he got there, Peter decided that a quick swing over to the apartment couldn't hurt. One more check, he told himself, to be sure.

Just once more.

OOO


	4. Wrong

OOO

Norman took a moment to relish the sight of Peter on his doorstep yet again, asking about Harry. Sometimes plans went massive awry, thanks in no small part to the interference of people like Peter; but then again there were times like these, when events worked out much better than he thought they would, if not precisely in the way which he'd planned. Since discovering Parker's secret, his goal had been to make him suffer, first by endangering those around him and then by manipulating Harry into betraying him.

Good to see that he was suffering in the meanwhile though.

Peter was speaking but Norman barely noticed the words he was saying. They were unimportant, after all, babbling apologies for bothering him at him home and unnecessary explanations of how worried he was. Instead, Norman focused on the tired, agitated twitches of Peter's body, the anxious facial expressions. He seemed a bit winded and Norman wondered if he had swung over as Spider-Man, if the suit was in his backpack or beneath his clothes. Tempting as it was to out the boy right there and then, crush his skull then dump the body, all good revenge came to those who waited and Norman had vowed he would suffer for his stupidity.

"Harry hasn't he called you or anything?" Peter pleaded, as if begging hard enough or asking enough times over would make Harry appear out of thin air. "I'm really worried; he hasn't even taken clothes or been back to the apartment, I haven't seen him in almost a week… I mean, don't you think we should file a missing persons report or something?"

He gave Peter his best exasperated sigh and shook his head. "I'm sure he's fine, Peter. He's an adult, he can take care of himself."

"You don't understand, something's wrong, I can feel… I just know."

Looking at him with a hawkish gaze, Norman wondered if he _did_ know something. Peter certainly seemed to be able to sense some dangers when they fought. He would have to ask Harry if he'd developed a similar sense of things, in order to better gauge how much Peter might know or suspect. Beyond that, his talk of involving the police and reporting Harry as missing were troubling. Bumbling good intentions might cause him as many problems as outright suspicions.

Perhaps it was time for Harry to come home – under strict directions and constant watch. Besides, Norman though as he patted Peter's slumping shoulders and sent the boy on his way, Peter seemed terribly worked up. He knew from what Harry told him about high school that Peter was a rather alienated boy. Small wonder that he would cling to his friendship with Harry.

Knowing how deeply that attachment ran might prove very useful in the future. And Norman wanted to be sure that he didn't overlook any avenues for manipulating and revenging himself upon the boy. The only problem would be making sure that finding out Peter was concerned and being in proximity to him didn't make Harry grow weak again. He was only starting to come around and asking too much to quickly could result in a major setback.

The trick, Norman thought as he locked the doors, drew the blinds and returned to the lab, would be to find an incentive for Harry to return. Once he did return, there was little Parker could do in a day that would ruin what Norman could do over the course of weeks. Even with a brief distraction, Harry could be broken again – it was, after all, more than easy to do it the first time. And a suitable fabrication about needing to be away for family business would keep Peter and the police from getting to curious – it wasn't even really a lie, Norman thought with a smile – and keep Harry in his grasp.

Harry had to be dealt with carefully, though. He walked over to where the boy was sleeping again in a mess of webbing.

"Wake up!" He shook his son. "We have things to discuss."

OOO

_Wrong. _

It was the only word Peter could think to describe his encounters. He was being continually brushed off, but he knew Harry better than to have faith in what his father suggested, that Harry was off being Harry. Maybe he was upset but it wasn't like him to leave with no explanation and not come back for days. Besides, he hadn't even taken anything with him. True, he was rich and could probably afford to buy whatever he needed along the way – but again, Peter doubted that he would simply leave without saying anything to anybody, no matter how angry he was.

More than that, every time Peter went to Harry's house and asked about him, his own spider-sense started to buzz. It wasn't a strong pulse, like when he was in a fight or about to be hit. He only felt faint twinges indicating that something wasn't right. Was Harry's dad lying to him for some reason? Maybe Harry _was_ at home but was mad at Peter and didn't want Peter to know he was there. Maybe he refused to see him and told his father to send Peter away.

Getting back to the apartment, Peter walked around, still unsettled by the persistent silence, trying to figure it all out. Putting everything else aside for the moment, he thought back to the last time he'd seen Harry.

_Okay, Peter. You can figure this out,_ he told himself.

He'd been at the hospital with Mary Jane, watching Aunt May. Harry had walked in, seen them and left while Peter had stayed behind to keep watch over his aunt. It had been an awkward moment, but Peter hadn't made much of it; surely Harry would see it was a misunderstanding, he thought. That he was only a friend to MJ, that she was more in love with his alter-ego than him.

Harry must have been hurt, though. So where would he go? Peter knew he wasn't close to any of the kids in high school and he hadn't made a lot of connections on campus – not deep ones anyway, beyond kids hanging around him because he was rich. And Harry knew better by now than to fall for any of that. Peter, really, was his only friend.

His father would be the logical one, Peter thought, to go to for comfort when his best friend hurt him. Even if his father was a bit unkind to Harry every now and again and more than a bit abrasive, he was still his father. Norman's unconcern made Peter uneasy, though – did he know something Peter didn't? Initially Peter doubted it; Harry was always going on to Peter about how his father never listened. It seemed ungenerous, but before this Peter would have had no qualms with feeling he knew Harry better than Norman did.

If Harry went to Norman, though, why would Norman lie about it? Was it at Harry's request? Or did he have his own reasons? Could Norman have been upset that Peter hurt his son or that MJ hurt Harry through Peter? Maybe Harry was there but Norman simply felt it best to keep Peter away from Harry for Harry's 'own good' and hadn't told either of them. That seemed awfully manipulative though, and while Norman could be cold Peter didn't think he would go so far as to sabotage his son's relationships. Well… beyond what he'd done at Thanksgiving, that was.

Of course, Peter thought, he might be on the wrong track altogether. Harry might have decided to avoid everybody and gone out on his own. He wasn't 21 yet but Peter was sure that Harry knew places where he could get in and get drunk. Maybe he'd picked somebody up, maybe he'd gone out to some hotel in the countryside for a week, maybe he'd gotten smashed and gotten into a fight…

There were too many maybes and not enough answers to go off of. Which, Peter reasoned, was why the police might be the best option. But with Harry's father unconcerned and possibly undercutting him, could they get very far? And he knew they had better things to do than track down a college kid who had a fight and was blowing off steam.

Uneasy, he went up to Harry's room and stood in the doorway. He knew what he was contemplating was a terrible violation of privacy and that he would be mortified if Harry went through his things in a similar fashion. He didn't mean any harm, though, he told himself. Quite the opposite. If Harry had gotten into trouble, there might be something in his room that would indicate where he was or what he was doing before he'd so suddenly vanished. That room might hold the only hint and if Peter didn't find out soon, who knew what might happen to Harry? And more than that, if he didn't figure it out, he might go crazy himself.

"Sorry, buddy," he whispered to the empty air. "I wouldn't do this if I didn't think you were in trouble."

Gingerly, he began lifting sheets, sifting through drawers, even going onto the computer – which, he noticed, Harry hadn't bothered to lock with a password or anything. He conscious rankled him and he wondered if that was Harry being careless or a sign of his trust in Peter, a trust he was currently violating. He dug through files and web histories, scanning for any sign of travel purchases or worrisome messages.

At the end of three hours, however, all he had to show for his efforts was a bunch of dirty clothing he'd found jammed into drawers and in the closet, half-a-semester's worth of undone homework assignments, about fifty gigabytes of pornography which, though not unexpected, made him blush furiously, a few grimy dishes stacked in a corner which he dumped into the sink and absolutely no sign of where Harry might have gone or what he might be doing.

More than a little frustrated and extremely tired, Peter collapsed onto Harry's bed, promising himself that he would put everything back in order and finish his homework, right after he took a quick nap. And on the morrow, he vowed, Norman's apathy or not, he was going to call the police to let them know Harry had gone missing.

OOO

_It was dark but the dark was comfortable because it was where you could hide and where you were safe. Danger lurked on the edges but it wasn't near enough yet for worry. Not yet, not yet, but lurking and nearing, ever nearing. And it was lonely in the dark. And on the wind the scent of… what? Pay attention, you should pay attention because it might be important… _

Harry's reverie was shattered by the sound of Norman's voice and, if it were not for his newly adhesive webbing and fingertips, he would have tumbled to the floor. He looked at his father, still a little bleary from waking up.

"What's the matter?" He rubbed his eyes, and then paused. There was a whiff of something in the air that tickled his nose and set him on edge. "Do you smell something?"

"What? No. Get ready. We need to talk."

OOO


	5. Scent

OOO

Norman shoved jeans and a shirt to Harry who jumped off the web and pulled them on. "First I need to ask you a few questions."

"Okay…Is this about, you know, my new condition?" He buttoned up the shirt.

"Yes." Norman's first reaction had been sarcasm but he stopped himself with the reminder that he was pondering, if botched, might turn Harry against him and give him the chance to escape. "When you are nervous or in danger, can you tell if something is wrong?"

"Kinda." He shrugged.

Again Norman bit his tongue. "Please explain."

"Well… I can tell if something's off a bit. Like right before you woke me up. But I don't know much more than that. I mean, I haven't been like this long." He gave his father a mildly reproachful look. "But it's pretty vague. I'll know something is off but not what, exactly. If you know what I mean."

Good. Parker wouldn't know the whole story, then.

"Very well." He tried to smile. "And how are you feeling?"

"I'm okay, I guess. Well enough." He looked apprehensive. "I'd like something to eat, though, if you wouldn't mind." He frowned. "And are you sure there isn't something you touched or… there's this sweet scent…" He looked at his father's shirt and hands.

"I don't know Harry. But of course I'll get you something to eat. Keep in mind that I do need you to do something for _me_ though."

"What's that?" Harry leaned against one of the machines, still looking around from time to time and periodically rubbing his wrists.

"Parker. He's getting nosy. I need you to go to your old place and explain to him that you have a family emergency and will be away for a while. You can grab whatever of your things you want while you're there – but make it clear that you're going to be away from a while."

Harry frowned and snapped his gaze toward Norman. "You told me he wasn't asking after me."

With a wave, Norman dismissed his son's concerns. "He's merely feeling guilty. There's little concern for you behind it; he's only trying to assuage his own bothersome conscience."

Though he gave him a wary look, Harry nodded.

"Now, I want to you go back and explain, as I said, and… Harry, what on earth are you doing?"

Turning his back on his father, Harry was working on the web again, intently.

"What does it look like?" He replied tersely. "I should do this before…" He shook his head. "I don't know. I need to do this. I'm supposed to do this."

"Before what? And supposed to? Harry, have you lost your mind?" Norman grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around, finding his son's face flushed. When he did, Harry lifted the hand off by the wrist and inhaled.

"You touched Peter," he whispered. "Or something. It's on your hands and shirt."

Yanking the hand away Norman stumbled backwards. "Harry, come over here for a moment. I need to run a few more tests on you."

The boy complied without objection, allowing Norman to take swabs of DNA and blood samples before going back to building his web. While waiting for the results to process, Norman glanced over at his son. The results of his experiment were beginning to trouble him. At first it looked as though the two sets of powers had successfully been blended, even augmented in Harry. Now, however, it seemed as though there might be a price to pay for mixing methods.

His strength was yet untested but obvious high. The problem was that he was exhibiting more instinctual traits than Peter seemed to be doing. Norman supposed he could be mistaken; after all, he had put Harry under 24 hour observation while most of what he used to gauge Peter was from either encountering him in battle or second-hand reports. Nevertheless, Harry hadn't said anything about Peter creating webs in which he insisted on sleeping. His identity wouldn't have been a secret for long if he had. Was this merely an odd proclivity of Harry, a quirk that came from the differences of any treatment between one person and another? Or was it related to the different circumstances between Peter's mutation and Harry's?

The machine beeped and he frowned; the answer leaned towards the latter, the goblin formula having sped up and augmented not only the strength Harry received but the characteristics he was exhibiting. The chemicals in his body were more offset, the patters in his brain were beginning to alter and…

That couldn't be right. Norman flipped to other pages in the print out, looked at the results from the blood and then looked towards his son, pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

'_He's aroused,'_ Norman realized to himself. Every person left traces of themselves behind, albeit very minute, but Harry had somehow recognized those traces and it had sent him into a sexually heightened state and practically sweating sex-related pheromones. Not altogether surprising, his father thought grimly, since Harry's chromosomal structure had been altered and was now reading XXY.

The spider had been female, he realized. The spider had been female and Harry's body was now changing likewise.

He wondered…

Only half an hour previous he had been berating himself for thinking about putting Harry into a situation where he might lose control over the boy and his talents. Now, however, the possibility for wrecking havoc on Peter was presenting itself and he wasn't sure if he could resist. After all, he reflected as his son continued to build his web, some female spiders were known for cannibalizing the males after mating.

Even if Peter ended up alive and well, there would be no easy way to back out of the situation that would likely transpire if he threw them back together. If his results were correct, Harry was becoming increasingly hormonally unstable and Norman would be willing to bet his very large house that, in Peter's presence, instinct would take over. Peter would be traumatized, Harry would be alienated, not to mention vulnerable – could he ask for more?

Of course, there was always the risk that Harry would choose Peter as his shoulder to lean on. But even if he did, he would probably be so confused and frightened that he'd be unable to mount any seriously defiant effort. More likely that he would be terrified and come running back to daddy as he always did in the end – who would, of course, be more than happy to welcome the little freak.

As he readied Harry for what lies to feed Peter, he idly wondered how far his son's changes were going to go. Best to find out, he thought, before attempting anything on himself.

OOO

Before his change, Harry had never quite known what people meant by the phrase 'out of body experience.' Yet as he sensed and felt and altered, it did seem as though it were happening to somebody else instead of him. He couldn't quite say why he was doing certain things now, simply knew that there was an irresistible impulse to do them.

As if the fact that he was utterly comfortable with sleeping in a huge web of his own making was not disturbing enough, his father had sharply reminded him that there was a point and purpose to his newly acquired powers. Sick to the pit of his stomach, Harry wasn't sure he understood why his father hated Peter so much, why he was so bound and determined to do away with his best friend. The other side of the scale was the grudging but present bits of affection his father had shown him, the scraps of pride towards his son which left Harry desperate for more.

Mix in a strong sense of fear and apprehension and Harry was left feeling as though no choice he made would be right.

Then Norman came over and draped his arm around Harry's shoulders, whispering to him about what he needed to do for the family name, how he could make his father proud. It was something he'd always hoped he could do and perhaps Peter did stand in the way of that – but then hadn't Peter betrayed him, in a sense, told half-truths of his own? Deeper feelings whispered as well, that spoke of latent jealousy and a strange kind of joy that his father was finally looking at him, at the son he could be, instead of wistfully at Peter, holding Harry up to that standard and perpetually finding him wanting. No, Harry thought with a wretched satisfaction, Peter had finally disappointed and he was the son Norman wanted.

Having gone without other human contact for several days, Harry leaned in towards his father, needy for even the casual comfort of his embrace. A few more assuring, smooth words and Harry found himself eagerly consenting to whatever his father asked of him.

"Can you do that? Can you do that for me?" Norman asked him with the assurance of knowing a 'yes' would be forthcoming.

"Of course, Dad," Harry said with an eager nod.

The answer was always 'of course.'

OOO

Peter didn't wake up until he heard the door to Harry's bedroom click shut. Nearly tumbling out of the bed, he rubbed his eyes and looked over to see Harry standing there, staring dumbly at him, looking a tiny bit worse for the wear but mostly appearing as if nothing had happened. In a tangle of limbs, Peter jumped out of the bed and embraced him enthusiastically, winding Harry as he did.

"Harry!" He laughed, though his eyes were wet. "You're alright! Do you know how worried I was? I was over your dad's place every day, I practically called the police…" He inhaled as he let go then looked worried. "You aren't still upset about the whole MJ thing, are you? Because that was just a misunderstanding." He shook his head. "I never meant… never mind what I meant." He grinned. "You don't know how glad I am to see you!" He shook Harry as he laughed then inhaled again and quirked his head. "And are you wearing some type of cologne Harry? You smell really nice… Something's different, you look really…" He trailed off, blushing.

Harry felt like his heart was going to explode for how quickly it was pounding and was wondering why he'd shut the door. It was cramped in here and Peter was there and had been on his bed and was in his room…

"What are you doing in my room?" He managed to murmur.

"Oh!" Peter blushed deeper. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't so out of my mind with worry. I was looking through your stuff to see where you'd gone and I know how it looks, but really – I thought you might be dead!" The grin was still all over and he took a step closer again. "And you really are smelling nice Harry," he reiterated, this time with a puzzled look.

Gaping like a fish, Harry nodded and tried to refocus. His father had told him what to say, had been very specific about the story they were going to give to Peter to throw him off the track. His father would be quite upset if he didn't do as he was told. His father was counting on him to come through, to follow his orders. His father…

"Peter," he breathed, looking down at him.

By then, Peter too had begun to sense that something was off-kilter. His spider-sense was twanging though not to tell him of danger. This was something new, something Peter was having trouble figuring it out. Harry was a step ahead and realized dimly, as if from outside himself, what his clenching stomach and warming blood meant. Leaving was out of the question and, feeling the throes of his own body, Harry felt simultaneously frightened, aroused and betrayed.

"So nice…" Peter swallowed, rubbing against Harry's neck and then pulling Harry into a kiss.

Finally breaking, Harry pushed Peter back onto his bed, each lost in a pheromone-driven haze of fervor, any platonic friendship evaporating in the face of the frenetic knowledge that there was only one like the other, only one option for filling the genetic responsibility that their body's were burdened with, that altered genetics pulled them towards. And Harry, farther down the path than Peter, webbed and webbed without any thought save a sharpened sense of need.

He woke first, found himself in the darkness with Peter unconscious, naked by his side and the room a morass of webbing. He leaned over Peter, centimeters away from his flesh, and then sat up sharply. Cold and sweating, he pulled on his clothes, grabbed what belongings he could and fled back to his father.

When he reached home, Norman Osborn was sitting up, waiting for him, settled into the high-backed chair with the mask hanging off of the corner, staring at Harry with its empty, deadened eyes. Harry stood in front of him, duffle hanging off of his shoulder, shirt half-undone, curls matted, face still flushed and the scent of sex piquing even Norman's nose.

"Did you do it on purpose?" He whispered, hoarse. "Did you know?"

Norman smiled.

OOO


	6. Reasons Why

OOO

Guilt weighing like lead in the pit of his stomach, Harry saw his mistake too late. Such a little matter, he thought, such a trivial reason to be angry with Peter. Such a foolish thought his father's comfort would be sincere. He had come to his father out of a need for solace, stayed out of the ever-gnawing desire to make him proud and now he found himself trapped by his naïve longings.

_Yet not too late…_ He took a step backwards and Norman, standing, chuckled.

"Oh, Harry," he whispered, shaking his head. "You think you can go back?" He crossed the distance between them and brushed back Harry's sweat-damp hair in a gesture of sinister affection. "You raped the boy who considered you his best friend, Harry. You raped him and you _liked_ it. He will never forgive you."

_Not right, not right, he kissed, he kissed first and knows his duty as well as we know ours, his scent told of his readiness…_

"Peter… no. I didn't do that. I didn't do that!" He wished he could look away from his father's gaze, the glare that always made him feel so small. "He kissed me, he wanted to, I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Yes you did, Harry. You're sweating, you smell of sex, and you said yourself he loves Mary Jane – so why would he willingly have sex with you?" He reached with both arms to Harry's shoulders and ran his hands down the length of the limbs. "But it's alright. I will not judge you. Tell your father how it was Harry. Did you pin him down? Penetrate him? Bite him?"

"This is sick." Harry shook his head. "I'm getting out of here. And then I'll tell Pete all about…"

"My secrets? Oh Harry, you disappoint me. You would turn against your father?" Harry's spider-sense twitched but he remained frozen in fear as Norman ran a hand along his neck, pressing in fingers and thumbs at precise points, reminding Harry of what he could do. "And who will you turn to? You have no friends. You think your victim will hear you out? Too late for apologies Harry; now you can only own to what you did – and admit that you enjoyed the experience."

Everything was unraveling at the edges. Harry's heart fluttered inside of his chest. His father had done this, his father was to blame, his father was the only one he had, his father was the only one who understood, who could forgive him the crime he'd forced him to do… His thoughts formed bitter and twisted circles in his mind that he could not sort.

My father would not do this, the mantra which had allowed him to downplay all that had happened so far, now proved itself a lie. His father would do anything, would not even hesitate. And now, because of his own weakness and urges, his own blind stupidity and unforgivable naivety, Harry could not blame the instigator of his ills, but rather had to turn to him as the only source of solace he would ever have.

"I don't want to hurt Peter!" He whimpered.

Norman's semi-amused, pity-twisted face filled his vision. "You will not be able to help it," he whispered. "Even now you want to go back. Even now you still feel the urge to violate him again. And one of the times that you do… one day you will go too far and do more than break him. It cannot be helped; it is your biology."

He pressed a simplified, redacted version of the lab report into Harry's hands.

"What did you _do_?!" Harry cried when he reached the final line, the point and purpose of the report, though the sound was muffled as he pressed his hand to his mouth.

"Only what I needed to." Norman looked Harry over, as if sizing him up. "Actually, I believe the change will suit you. You always were unnecessarily emotional." He smirked. "And with so much of your mother in you, if I might say, rather beautiful. If you could not have a suitable mind, at least you have a satisfactory body."

The implication was too strong to be missed; but Harry swallowed his fear, his nausea. Monstrous as it was, this was this only place he had left to call home. The worst had already been done, the changes already set in motion. Futile to face those changes alone, out in the cold.

"Please," he breathed after several moments of silence, "I only want to…"

"I know. Crawl off to your corner Harry. You'll be called for soon enough."

Dropping the bag without even remembering what was in it, what he'd packed in the rush, Harry stumbled into the darkness with a resigned air. There was no 'best' of anything to be made out of the situation, but he could deceive himself as long as he was able into feeling useful and needed and… loved? No, never loved; his father did not love.

But he had pretending. And that would have to be enough, he thought, in lieu of the one he wanted but knew that he couldn't, shouldn't be near.

He had been so sure… Harry shook his head.

"You hurt him," he whispered to himself as a reminder and berated himself for trying to mentally rationalize his actions.

OOO

Even before he opened his eyes, Peter could tell that the air was filled with a heavy, sweet scent that meant something was wrong and his body, wrapped in the sheets, still ached in a fading fashion. Opening his eyes, he saw the remnants of webs hanging off of every surface and fixture in the room, dangling from the ceiling and swaying from invisible currents of air in the room.

_Harry's_ webs, he remembered. Seconds later, it occurred to him that they were the source of the perfume. Moved by internal grindings that disregarded his nudity, his emotional confusion, anything that would have made him otherwise pause and, at the least, shower and dress, Peter stood and began gathering the webs into his hands, pressing them into his face to get closer to their fragrance.

Some of the strands were slick with a chemical residue; these were the ones in which the scent was the strongest, potent enough to make Peter's head cloud and his muscles tense. Inhaling, he looked around for Harry, the need from the previous night suddenly returning. Harry had gone, however, that much was clear and Peter…

Swallowing, he realized he was painfully erect. But with Harry suddenly departed, he had no recourse but himself. Hand still covered in webbing remnants, he reclined on the mattress, pumping to bring himself to climax then rocking on his side and stifling himself in the sheets. Then, curling up, he drifted off to sleep again.

The second time he woke up, much of the scent had dissipated, like a fog burning off in the light of morning. As he untangled himself from the crumpled linens, Peter inwardly ran over the events of the previous night.

For the first time it occurred to him – he had lost his virginity.

Sitting in a chair next to Harry's desk, Peter wondered if he was upset over this realization. It wasn't as though his virginity was something he wanted to keep; it was somewhat embarrassing after all, given that it was starting to look like he would be drinking age before anyone laid a hand on him. Admittedly, though, it was not how he'd envisioned it. He usually assumed he would have sex after being in a long relationship and always assumed he would lose his virginity to a girl – ideally, in his fantasies, to Mary Jane.

Harry was not in a lengthy relationship with him – at least not a romantic one, or so he'd thought, Harry was not a girl and Harry was nothing like what Peter had envisioned Mary Jane might be. Sudden, violent, needy – what on earth had come over him? For that matter, he reflected, what had come over Harry? He wasn't a skirt-chaser, exactly, but he had dated Mary Jane and there were enough naked shots of Miss Octobers and Bunnies of the Week on his computer to have otherwise convinced Peter he was nothing but a red-blooded, heterosexual male. In all the time they'd spent together in high school, lived together in college, there had never been any indication.

Then suddenly he came back, spinning webs of his own and the first thing they did was fuck?

There had to be more than that, something that explained _why_, a reason, a trigger…

That smell.

Abruptly, Peter, manic in his problem solving enthusiasm, ran to the kitchenette and rummage in the cabinets for a Pyrex container. Going back to the room, he filled the glass bowl with what hadn't yet dissolved of the webbing. The biggest, obvious clue… Harry had an accident. Something had happened to Harry while he was away; somehow he'd gotten powers like Peter had. Of course, Peter mused, the initial problem with that hypothesis was that his accident didn't make him go out and have random, angry sex with anybody.

Which meant there had to be a different reason, or at least another factor. Pushing the lid down onto the container, he wondered if Connors might be able to help him. He was the only professor Peter was close enough to that he thought might let him have access to the equipment he might need and that he could trust with the confidentiality of the matter. Of course, he thought, he could always sneak into a lab and examine the webbing himself.

But Harry was still missing and Peter was uneasy about that disappearance. Recalling what he'd said the previous night, a family emergency had come up and he needed to be away for a while. But if that was true, then why hadn't Norman known where he was? And what could the emergency possibly be? As far as Peter knew, Harry's only relative was his father and Norman had been in perfect health the last Peter had seen him.

Plus there was the matter of the webbing. He disappeared, came back with powers and then disappeared again? Peter was trusting but even he could see through that lie. Confused, he allowed his mind to indulge in a suspicion which he had previously quashed.

Could Norman have been involved?

From afar Peter had seen the complex, destructive relationship the two had. Harry was desperately to please though Norman was always disappointed; yet irregardless of the cutting remarks and displeased glares, Harry always returned to him. Peter recalled their Thanksgiving dinner; Norman had been vicious but, between the girl he liked and his father, Harry had taken Norman's part. Even when he was wrong, even when he was being cruel, Harry wanted his attention, his affection.

No matter how he was treated or degraded Harry, Peter was certain, would do nearly anything for his father.

Which, he thought cynically, might explain a lot. Of course, it was still all conjecture; but if Norman was culpable, had a reason to do something like this to Harry, then he certainly wasn't going to come clean about it. His reluctance to worry about Harry or call the police suddenly made much more sense if Harry had gotten hurt messing around the labs. Norman would, after all, be responsible and it could once again endanger the company that was just getting back on track.

The other possibility was that he'd done it to Harry deliberately. Peter shuddered; he was a cold man, condescending, but to do that? And what motive could he have for experimenting on his own son? Such secrets… they were like doors, Peter thought. Even if you knew the answers might be behind them, you were still afraid to look. Even to contemplate what Norman might do and why…

Shaking off the worry, at least for the moment, Peter grabbed his book bag and shoved in the suit and the sample of webbing. He made quick time to the Empire State labs where, fortunately, Connors was working. Fabricating a story about finding the webbing after taking photos of Spider-Man and getting curious, he handed over the sample then, changing, made his way to the penthouse yet again.

This time, however, he perched on the roof and waited. Norman guarded the place carefully but, as head of the company, he still had to work on occasion, had to leave at some point. Again Peter felt a stab of guilt, like the one he'd felt right before he'd gone rummaging through Harry's room. He used the same logic to reassure himself, however; it might technically be breaking and entering but it was for a greater purpose. He remembered how excited the powers had been, but how confusing and frightening as well. If Harry was going through the same experience, he needed support, not to be locked away so that people would know.

And if there was another reason for his sequestering… Peter shook his head. It didn't matter.

One way or another he was going to get to the bottom of this.

OOO


	7. Seek and Find

OOO

Even through the layers of brick and insulation, the metal and the wood paneling, even through the distance that separated them, Harry was aware of Peter's presence. At first he was nervous; Peter was Spider-Man after all, strong enough to be a threat to his father. Perhaps he had come seeking physical retribution against his old friend, meant to attack him as recompense for Harry's violation. Yet the minutes and hours ticked by and it seemed as though Peter did not move.

Why had he come, then? Harry wondered and, more than that and despite himself, he wanted to see Peter. If only for a moment, the chance to see him and apologize… but then that wasn't it, was it? He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the presence that hovered so many floors above him, like a watchful guardian. If he saw Peter again, he would probably end up accosting him.

For the umpteenth time he screwed his eyes shut against any feelings, any hope he might have had, and chastised himself for even thinking of Peter. It was like hurting Peter all over again when he imagined what they would do if they came together. He had no right, no right, none at all.

But the mixture of mammal and arachnid urges and instincts reached out, recognized its mate and wanted him. Wanted him so badly, Harry wondered if it might not drive him crazy. He couldn't think clearly, he couldn't control his actions – every move he made felt like a litany of want, need, hunger, desperation.

And somewhere, beneath it all, there was a college kid who missed his only friend but found with no small measure of despair that their friendship had become distressingly tangled.

OOO

'_How long can he stay in there?'_ Peter sat up on the roof, hidden behind a balustrade and getting colder by the minute. His muscles cramped from their inactivity and awkward positioning, but still he maintained the post he'd assumed, shifting only every so often so that his limbs didn't completely fall asleep.

Still, for all his waiting, there had been little sign of either Osborn. Some sense within him – probably hormones, he realized – told him that Harry was inside the building, was in fact very close by. That was information he already knew, however. The questions he needed answered were where was he, precisely, and what was he doing – or being made to do, Peter thought with a grimace.

'_If only he had stayed,' _Peter reflected with regret. Had he woken up sooner, before Harry, he could have prevented him from leaving and then at least he might have been on his own turf. Here, for all his familiarity with Harry's home, he was still off-guard. It was not his place, his territory; the penthouse was, would always be to some degree, Norman Osborn's domain. Which complicated matters more than he'd anticipated.

The more Peter considered the more he came to the conclusion that Norman had to be involved with Harry's change, at least to some degree. And if his fear was anything to go by, Norman's treatment of Harry had been more of the same and likely worse. He might have pressured Harry into taking experimental drugs in order to serve his company, Peter thought. And Harry, poor Harry, so eager to please… He might do something that blatantly dangerous if it meant winning Norman's affection.

The hour grew late but Norman never seemed to leave. Unwilling to tip his hand so early, or so he thought, Peter reluctantly left his post and swung away, hoping that a return on the morrow would prove to be more successful. He was uneasy about leaving Harry alone, with the boy possibly assuming the worst about the status of their relationship and likely being experimented on, caused Peter no small anxiety. But if he could assess the situation without Norman knowing, he might be able to help Harry and avoid any confrontations.

He came back to their apartment for a restless night of sleep, establishing a pattern he would follow over the next week. He waited as often as he could, yet Norman never seemed to be out; Peter could always see him hovering at a window or hear his voice echoing inside the penthouse. Peter got up on the ninth day, intending to go immediately to the apartment. Before he did, however, he recalled the sample he'd left with Dr. Connors over a week earlier. A short detour couldn't hurt, he reasoned, and it might render more information about Harry's condition. He went to the lab, hoping that Dr. Connors would be there that early, and found to his relief that the professor had arrived.

"Did you look at the sample?" He asked breathlessly.

Connors looked up from the microscope. "I have. Wish you were this diligent about getting to class." Peter blushed at the remark as Connors went over to his briefcase, retrieving the sample and several pages of notes. "Let me tell you, Mr. Parker, your little sample there gave me quite the surprise."

"Oh? Why's that?" Peter's spider-sense made him edgy but he stilled his urge to fidget.

"It seems that Spider-_Man_ might not be an entirely accurate appellation." Peter paled though Connors, looking down at the notations he'd made, failed to notice. "The genes are reading XXY." He looked up as Peter's mouth grew dry. "Whoever's behind that mask is intersexed."

Taking the papers from Connors in a daze, Peter barely managed to thank him and walk out the door before breaking into a run and heading for the nearest alley to change. _Intersexed_… Oh God, _Harry_. If he didn't know already, he was going to completely freak out. And if he already knew… Matters made more sense with the development but Peter felt substantially worse.

Suspicion about Harry's circumstances no longer held weight. Peter felt that, Norman and his complications aside, he needed to reach Harry as soon as possible. He swung up to the penthouse in record time and changed back into his street clothes, intending to break through the bay windows if necessary.

It was a bit disconcerting to find them unlocked; nevertheless, he pressed forward.

OOO

It had been a long day for Harry – assuming that it had been a day at all. He hadn't been long at the house but without a watch or any type of clock around, without windows or any type of external contact, it was impossible to tell what time of day or even _what_ day it was. He slept and woke when needed, that was all.

Sometime that first day, after Peter's presence finally vanished, his father decided that it would be a good idea to begin his physical training. He'd been made to run on a treadmill and do a variety of exercises until he felt as though his muscles would give. Then, when he was finally worn out and red-faced from exertion, he'd been dragged back to the gas chamber for another dose of formula.

The fumes did not choke him like they had the first time, but that first time he still tried to keep from inhaling, fearing the changes it was working in him. Norman refused to open the chamber, however, so he finally capitulated and sucked in the green mist. It still burnt, still made him dizzy, but his father assured him that he would get used to it. Given everything else, it seemed like only one more circumstance to adapt to – a much less difficult one given the anticipated changes ahead.

The process repeated over and over until the exercises and treatments blended together and he lost track of all sense of frequency or duration. Once he was done, tired and slightly nauseous, Norman always left him again to his own devices and he returned to his corner, thinking on the changes slowly happening to him. He looked around at the webbing then down at his hands. Strange to think of his body not being his own, changing in ways he could do nothing about, had no power to prevent.

It was, he thought with some sense of irony, like going through puberty again, only exponentially more frightening and bewildering. There was no assurance this time that 'everybody goes through it.' _Nobody_ did, nobody went through this. Nobody except perhaps… but no. Peter was changed but not how he was. And Peter could not be there for him – he'd seen to that himself, unintentionally or otherwise.

There wasn't even certainty about how the process would go, what course it would take and how it would end. He hugged himself, felt the familiar shape of his body and wondered how long that would last. Would people know if they saw him that something was different and out of place? Would remaining hidden be his only guard against open derision and mockery spurred on by his malformed body? Or would the changes be private, his alone to see in the dark and feel shame over?

Stretching out, he rubbed the spinnerets on his wrists. It could have been fun or exciting at one point, he thought. Peter certainly seemed… but he wasn't supposed to be thinking of Peter. Regardless, it could have been exciting, the prospect of having powers that nobody else did. Instead it was poisoned, like everything his father touched, he thought, and instead was now a lonely nightmare of revolting metamorphosis.

The training was not merely a disturbing catalyst of changes, however; it also served to remind him that the changes had a point and purpose. Sometime, in a future less distant than he would have wished, his father expected him to harm Peter. The details were sketchy – his father never deigned to explain all his motives or reasons – but he knew enough to tell that Peter had refused his father and stood in his way. So now he was expected to kill him, kill his best friend, for no reason beyond keeping his powers a secret, caring about Mary Jane and denying the whims of an admittedly unhinged and vicious murderer.

It should have been an easy decision, he thought bitterly; but where his father was concerned, nothing was ever easy. He wondered if the green gas was eating away at his brain, making him hesitate and quail when the path should have been clear. That on top of his self-acknowledged desire to make Norman proud was tempting him into monstrous action.

Ironically, however, there was one part of him who viewed the path as clear. The spider-like impulses chastised him. Peter was the one he ought to be with, instinct told him, not one he should kill. Kill Peter and he took away his only chance for a companion, only chance for a mate. Paradoxically, that which had led him to hurt Peter might be the only restraint which saved him.

Sitting in the darkness, thinking to himself as time uncertainly ticked away, he promised himself he wouldn't, he couldn't. No matter what his father did, no matter what else he thought up, he would not be induced to kill Peter. Of course, though it sounded good in his head, he was well aware that, starving or cold or beaten, he might change.

But at least he could try. He could attempt, do what he could, hold out until…

The glass at the entrance of the hideout shattered.

"Harry?"

Peter.

OOO

Much to his relief, Norman had not appeared, though every second he lingered increased his anxiety. Peter had done his best to find the entrance to the lair but his only hint was his spider-sense going off like crazy in front of a full length mirror. Tapping it, he realized it sounded as though there were no walls behind it. Try as he might, however, he couldn't find any sort of mechanism to make it slide aside. Wincing as he braced himself, and briefly considering how expensive it would be to replace if he was wrong, he kicked the mirror, shattering it.

Behind the mirror steel glinted and, as he walked through, he saw a vast array of gliders, masks, pumpkin bombs…

_Shit. _

"Harry?" He called out, hearing his voice echo strangely. "Harry?" There was a sound in the corner of the room and his instinct pricked. _That way_. He ran over and found a massive web with Harry in the corner, looking down at him with wild nervous eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry…"

"We need to get out of here, Harry." Peter began climbing the web without preamble and soon pulled himself level with Harry. "Come on, come on, we might not have much time!" He tried to tug Harry down the web, but the other hesitated.

"Peter?" He swallowed. "You aren't mad at me? Even after I… after I…?"

"What's wrong?" Peter paused and pulled closer. "Are you embarrassed that we had sex?" He blushed a bit. "I mean, I know I was probably inexperienced and did everything wrong, and if you like girls better that's okay, but it wasn't bad and I… well, I mean, I kinda liked it if that's what you're worried about." He made a small, reassuring smile.

Harry paused. "My father lied, didn't he?" He finally whispered.

Peter nodded. "I think… Harry, did he do this to you?"

Looking down at the ground, he nodded. "I don't want to be here anymore!" His voice broke.

"Then let's get out of here and we'll… well, we'll think of something."

The climbed down the web together; but as soon as they reached the ground, Peter heard a step behind them.

"Hello little spider," Norman leered.

OOO


	8. Decision

OOO

Peter backed up and felt the tips of Harry's fingers digging into his side. Reaching, Peter felt for his hand to try and reassure him without ever taking his eyes off of Norman. Uncertain of what Norman was going to do, Peter tried to quash the panic rising inside of him and decide whether to attack or try to run.

"You're the Goblin," he managed to say, his voice sounding squeakier than he might have wished.

"Figure that one out?" Norman said dryly. "Too bad you'll never be able to use that knowledge, seeing as you're going to die here."

"You… you killed people, you attacked Aunt May… you experimented on your own _son_," he went on, still having difficulty processing the reality set forth in front of him.

"I made Harry stronger!" Norman screamed, causing Peter to quail. "And now he can show you how strong he is." He gestured to Harry, still standing behind Peter. "Kill him."

"What?" Harry sounded confused.

"I said kill him," Norman growled through gritted teeth. "He's in your hands, you know he's set himself against me, against you, lied to you and used you – reach up and snap his neck, strangle him, bash his head in, I don't care! Just do it!"

For a few terrifying seconds, Peter felt Harry's hands slight up and stroke, ghost-like, across the flesh of Peter's throat. Then they fell away and Harry shook his head, despondent.

"But I… I don't want to!" Harry's voice strained. "Please, you don't have to do this; you don't have to make me do this…"

Norman sighed, exasperated by his son as if his refusal to murder Peter was just another disappointing report card. "I should have known. Even with strength and training, you're too much of a coward to use it." Casually, he reached over to a rack and grabbed a pumpkin bomb, tossing it lightly up and down. "But at least you were good for luring him here," he said, clicking a button on the bomb and tossing it towards Peter.

Instinctively, Peter shot out a line of webbing and threw the bomb away to the side before pulling Harry off to the side as Norman lunged at them with a knife he'd scooped up. Desperately crashing his way through a metal maze of shelving and weapons displays, Peter tried to pull Harry towards the exit – a task made significantly harder by the boy's sudden paralysis.

Norman came right behind them, laughing as if he'd lost his mind and lobbing a bomb every so often. Though they managed to avoid getting hit with anything more than light shrapnel the air was filling with suffocating, acrid smoke that clouded their vision and inhibited their progress. Peter shot out webbing in a desperate attempt to stall Norman and reach the exit, but when he did manage to reach the door he found it to be sealed. Norman was on his heels and he abandoned any attempt to open the door, instead running more around the laboratory.

His mind was frenzied as he realized their predicament; he was used to fighting in a cityscape, with open spaces, room to swing and scuffle. Caught in a room full of explosives and weaponry that Norman was familiar with presented the other with a tremendous advantage – to say nothing of the friend who, as much as he cared about him, was admittedly slowing him down.

"Harry, move," Peter pleaded. "Or he'll kill you too!"

"Dad, please…" Harry turned and reached out a hand.

"Get down!" Peter pulled him to the floor as another bomb was tossed there was and exploded into a rack in front of them, sending more bombs tumbling in all directions. Yanking Harry up, he tried to clamber up over the metal wreckage, but Harry stumbled and they both fell down. Legs aching from bruises and back stinging with burns, Peter looked up to see Norman towering over them.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," he growled. "I offer you a place by my side and you threw it in my face."

"You're _crazy_," Peter whispered, shaking his head. "You can't possibly think…"

"What I _know_," Norman snapped as he bent to pick up two more bombs, "is that if you beg – beg good and hard, mind you – I _might_ relent. Don't and there are so many ways to hurt you," he smirked. "Your aunt, Mary Jane… Harry."

"I… I might kill you!" Peter staggered to his feet defiantly, holding a pumpkin bomb of his own. Harry, still prone, clutched at his leg. "And I won't let you hurt them!"

"You cannot protect all of them," Norman chuckled. "But you know that. And I know you. And I know my son. You will not kill; and Harry, for all his pathetic whining and weaknesses, will not raise a hand against me. He's mine to deal with."

Peter looked down at Harry who was shaking, practically convulsing. He looked like he was a hair's width away from a complete mental breakdown; even if he didn't aid Norman, he probably wouldn't try to subdue him either. Given time and now knowing what he knew, Peter wondered if he could sway Harry from his obsessive, unhealthy filial loyalty. But there was no longer any time for that.

Images of Aunt May lying hurt in her bed, of Mary Jane, of Harry, filled his thoughts; and given what Norman had already done the threats weighed heavy on Peter. There was no way out that would not hurt people, no way to evade responsibility for some negative consequences. His throat felt tight and his palm was sweaty against the cold metal of the bomb.

Anyway the situation ended, any action he took would result in blood on his hands.

"Please don't hurt them," he murmured, sounding defeated.

"Well then, you know what you have to do, don't you?" Norman said dryly. "Put the bomb down first though – I don't want you trying anything sneaky when you fall to my feet to plead for your life."

Peter looked around, a last ditch effort to see if there was anything nearby he might use. There was a rack he thought he might pull down on Norman and he did have the bomb. But Norman had two of them and knew how to detonate them. That and Harry was still clutching his leg as if to keep himself from downing, eliminating nearly all possibility of further flight.

"What do you want from me?" He asked in a weary tone. "Beyond the groveling."

"Stay out of my way. Mostly. Not too much to ask, is it?" Norman gave him a twisted smile. "Of course, I might have a task for you or Harry that I will expect to be done without any balking. But that will only be once in a while; I am more than capable of handling my own affairs. All I ask is that you overlook whatever I do." He laughed. "I wouldn't even mind you running around, doing whatever heroics you please."

His shoulders slumped and his hands clenched. Moral decisions always seemed so black and white ahead of time. But his aunt's recent hospitalization and Harry's treatment gave weight to the threats that could not be ignored. At the least, he told himself, it would be practical to sate the man's raving ego and look for a better opportunity to… well, to do _something_.

Feeling nauseous, he nodded. "Fine. Fine. I'll say whatever you want. Only don't… don't hurt Aunt May or Harry."

"You have my word," Norman smirked. "Now get on your knees." Peter tore himself free from Harry and did so as Norman looked down in glee. "Good, good. Now apologize for your resistance. And admit my superior intellect while you're down there." Peter opened his lips and froze, trying to force the words to come. As he swallowed, Norman's expression grew ugly. "Hurry it up; I don't have all day to waste."

"I am sorry…"

He never got past the third word, however. There was a sudden 'thwip' and a creaking sound an instant before the shelving Peter had been eyeing toppled onto Norman. Dumbfounded, Peter turned to see Harry looking torn between expressing relief and horror at what he'd just done.

"He's my father," he told Peter helplessly, though Peter couldn't tell if that meant he felt betrayed by Norman or ashamed of what he'd done to him.

Then Norman groaned incoherent and Peter sprang into action. He webbed Norman to the floor with a couple of shots then turned to his friend.

"We need to get out of here!" He shook Harry. "Can you open the door?"

"I don't think… there are the bombs," he pointed out.

Exploding their way out didn't seem the safest option. But Norman could wake up at any time and Peter didn't think he could figure another way out of the windowless, brick-walled room on such short notice.

"Fine then."

They rolled a few towards the exit door, blowing it open moments later. Worried that Harry might rethink the whole 'escaping' part, Peter pushed him through the door – though not before taking one last look at his father. If there was any time to kill Norman, it would be now, before he could corner them again with knives and explosives. Norman's threats weren't going to go away and, long-term, he wasn't sure there was any other solution.

But ingrained ethics told him that killing a man when he was down wasn't the right course of action either. Besides, now that he was free there were other measures he could take, he reflected. He sat Harry down on the couch, bound Norman up in webbing as securely as he could, and then stood back. Halfway in the door, Peter could, by turning his head, see both Harry and his father, Harry looking lost and fractured and Norman slumped and unconscious in a cocoon of Peter's making.

He wasn't sure of what consequences would come of the world knowing about Norman Osborn, what impact it might have upon Harry. But it seemed the only way short of actually killing him to keep him from going after Aunt May again – from going after anybody again. His own secret might even be lost in the process. But there were no other choices, not ones that would mesh with his moral code.

Setting bombs, he blew up the lab's computers, hoping at least to cover the tracks of what Norman had done to Harry, not to lighten the man's punishment but for Harry's privacy. Then he changed into his costume, not even thinking that he was doing so in full view of Harry. It was only when he was pulling the mask on that he saw the other was staring.

Peter froze and Harry blushed. "You look good," Harry said.

"Thanks." Peter pulled the mask on, went over and traced the line of Harry's jaw with a costume-clad finger. "You don't look that bad yourself." Sitting down next to him, he took Harry's hand. "Listen, cops might be coming here already – I don't know how sound-proof this place is but chances are somebody heard those explosions. You need to get out of here."

"Where will I go?" Harry said, nervousness edging his words.

"The apartment. Go there and wait. I'll be back soon, I promise."

Harry nodded in slow-motion as if it were a hard concept to grasp. As Peter walked out onto the balcony and made to swing away, Harry called out to him.

"What's going to happen?"

Peter stood silent and then shook his head.

"I wish I knew," he whispered, barely loud enough for Harry to hear. "You'd better hurry."

Harry nodded and went to the windows as Peter stood on the parapet. "Where are you going?"

"The police station," he said as he shot out a line and swooped downward.

Going back inside Harry took a breath, looked at the destroyed lab but then gathered what he'd taken from the apartment to begin with before going downstairs and hailing a cab.

It wasn't until he got back that he realized that Peter still did not, to his knowledge, realize what the lingering effects of Norman's experimentation would be. Terrified, he waited in the kitchenette, wondering what he would say, what he should say to Peter when he finally came back. Peter walked through the door not long after, his crossing the city having been made easier by web-slinging.

"Peter…"

"Yeah, Harry?" Peter began peeling off his costume.

"Pete, I… I mean, I should tell you… look, it's just…" He struggled for words that weren't coming, until Peter set a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's just go to sleep Harry, alright? I'm tired, you're tired… let's get some rest before we talk about anything."

"Okay," Harry whispered.

And without mentioning it or discussing it, they both went into Harry's room and crawled under the still unmade sheets, falling asleep within minutes.

OOO


	9. Pity or Guilt

OOO

"Harry." Peter whispered to his friend and nudged him in the darkness. "Harry, you're chewing on my neck," he repeated a bit louder.

"Gnh." Harry sat up and leaned against the wall. "Sorry."

"It's OK." Peter rubbed his neck. "Nothing a turtleneck can't cover up." He propped himself up next to Harry. "And if I woke you up too early, feel free to go back to sleep for a while."

"No, it's fine." Harry rubbed at his eyes as his jaw gaped in a yawn. "So I'm really wondering where my apologies should begin."

"Harry, you don't need…"

"Yeah, I do," he interrupted.

"My neck's alright, it really doesn't…"

"I'm not talking about that Peter!" Harry shouted. "And you know that!" He bunched the comforter in his hand. "I… I didn't mean to… I didn't mean for anything to be this way."

"I know, I know."

"_Please._ Let me get this out." Peter nodded and fell silent. "I didn't want to have sex with you. I mean… I didn't mean for that to sound like that. Not that I think you're unattractive or that I wouldn't… This isn't coming out right. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to pull you into the middle of my problems. I didn't mean to endanger you or get you hurt." He took a breath. "And I'm sorry I wasn't of more help against my father."

"I'm not mad at you," Peter said when Harry finished. "I've told you that. It wasn't your fault. And it wasn't that bad, losing my virginity like that. Not expected, but as I said, not bad."

Harry looked at him. "You know," he said with a bitter sort of smile, "I was too."

"Was what?"

"A virgin."

Peter looked at him skeptically. "You're putting me on."

Harry shook his head 'no.' "I'm dead serious. It was… well you know how it was at school. You were the only one I was ever close to, ever got to be friends with. And I would have told you if I had." He laughed. "What, did you think one-night-stands came with the rich kid territory?"

"The thought crossed my mind."

"Maybe it does." He shrugged. "But I'm not… I didn't. That's all."

"Not even with MJ?"

"Not even with her. Though that wasn't all on my part." Harry fidgeted. "The thing of it is, Peter, that even though I'm upset about what we did, I still want to have sex with you. I still would have sex with you." He looked at Peter, distressed. "Which is why I think I should stay away but I don't want to stay away because every impulse I have says I should be with you and I… who else do I have? I don't have any other friends, now I don't have a family.

"And I know it probably sounds clingy and sappy and stupid, but I need _somebody_. Even just for friendship, so long as I'm not totally alone. You know what that's like. And I'm afraid of that, afraid of being by myself day after day. Maybe there was a time when it wouldn't have bothered me, but not now – not after getting used to you and to us. Even if I know I should be."

"I'm not going to leave, okay?" Peter put a hand on him to steady him.

"_Damn it_, Pete. You're too obliging. I don't want you to be with me because you pity me or because you think it's the standup thing to do and you're not assertive enough to leave. And I know you don't love me like that. You like women, there's no reason to pretend you don't. And even though I know I've probably been spoiled, I'd like to think I'm not that selfish, that I'd ruin your life along with mine. In the end, there's no good choice." He shrugged off Peter's touch. "You should have left me in that lab to die."

"You know I wouldn't do that."

"You should have; otherwise, you could have died." He didn't mention he worried they still might.

"But you intervened." Peter scooted closer. "That had to mean something."

"I was almost too late."

Peter nodded. "Well… I suppose, truth be told, I was getting nervous. And I didn't think you would for sure. Seeing as he is your father."

"It wasn't right," Harry murmured. "Putting you in that position. You're not supposed to…" He cut short his line of thought.

"What is it?" Peter tentatively prodded.

"He's my father. But you… you're something else. And he shouldn't have made you do that. You're supposed to be better."

"Well, whatever made you help, and even if we don't know what the future holds, I'm glad we made it out alive." He bit his lip. "And Harry… look, I know it's not the usual path relationships take. But don't think that because I've pined for Mary Jane or that I would have probably called myself straight that it means I don't love you."

"You were like my _brother_."

"And then things changed. So now we're… well, something else. I never thought about it before either, but it isn't unwelcome or even unbelievable. The companionship, the affection – that's all still there. But now there's sexual attraction too. And isn't that love? Couldn't it be?"

"I don't know," Harry sighed. "I didn't want it to be like this. I want to be straight. I want to be straight and regular and not have to think about anything like this!" He might have sounded angry save for his exhaustion. "And now… now a normal life is never going to happen." He sank down into the pillows. "So what happens now? What did you tell the cops?"

"That there had been an incident at the Osborn penthouse. I didn't say much and nothing about you."

"They'll probably figure out I was there, though. My fingerprints all over the place. Yours too for that matter. Listen," he said, grabbing Peter's wrist, "if they come asking, I'm Spider-Man, alright?"

"What? Why?"

"Because somebody is going to get into trouble for this and it might as well only be one of us. It makes more sense being me. The lab, the vendetta against my father. I'll tell them that you were able to take pictures of me because you're my roommate and I kept you in the loop on where I was going to be. Besides, there are other considerations too."

"Like what?"

"No offense, but you've caused a lot of property damage and injury along the way. You're a vigilante and that means that if people knew your identity, they would probably sue. I have… I can deal with something like that better than you can."

"Maybe we won't have to deal with it at all?" Peter suggested with faux hope. "Maybe the lab was too torn up to tell who else was there."

"My father is still alive, though," Harry murmured. "And he might say something; maybe it won't even work to begin with if he runs his mouth to the police, trying to make a deal or get some leverage. I have no idea how he'll spin the situation but I'm sure he won't hesitate to drag one or both of us down with him."

"I should have…" Peter shook his head. "Maybe I should have killed him while he was down. Before he could do anymore to hurt you."

Harry took a deep breath, as if he were gathering himself. "That's… there is one more thing, Peter. I haven't said anything because… because I'm afraid of what you'll think, of admitting it to myself… of everything. Peter… Peter, when he did this, there was something else, something besides the powers that happened…"

"Harry, it's alright," Peter whispered. "I know. I tested your webbing, I saw your chromosomes. I know."

At first Harry paled, then flushed a deep scarlet a moment later. "Peter…"

"Never mind all that." Leaning over in the grey light of the early morning, Peter kissed Harry, stilled his friend's shaking frame with his hands. "I have fears too," he murmured when he drew back. "I fear losing you. I fear making wrong decisions. I fear failing those who matter to me. But I don't fear you and I don't want to run.

"It's my choice if I want to stay. My decision. And regardless of how we got here, this is where we are and it's where I want to be."

"Jesus, Pete, do you even know what you…" Harry trembled and shifted so that his body was closer to Peter's. "Pete, you don't know what you're doing to me…"

"I'm young and inexperienced and more than a little naïve, I know that Harry. But don't condescend to me." He pressed on Harry's collar and moved his own hips so that his crotch nudged up against Harry's. "It was sudden but it was wonderful and exhilarating and I want to do it again. I, Pete, _me_, I want to do this and for myself; not Spider-Man and not because I feel guilt or pity."

Harry hesitated. "I don't know if I can say the same Peter. I don't know… my body and my… my mind… I don't even really know what's _me_ anymore."

Pausing, Peter lifted himself away. "If you don't want to…"

"Too late for that now." Harry pulled him back down and started fumbling with the clothes he'd fallen asleep in. "I never thought of you… I'm sorry, but this wasn't…"

"Then we'll be best friends who fool around. Nobody has to know. It's nobody's business." Peter cast aside his undershirt. "I'll keep your secrets Harry, I'll never tell."

"Even when it's my body?" Harry whispered, opening himself up. "You promise you won't let anybody see, won't let them laugh?"

"I promise." Peter pushed in and Harry gasped, and while Peter thrust Harry buried his teeth into Peter's shoulder until he could taste blood.

_Yes, good, he wants you, it's as it should be, all is ordered, all is well…  
_

When they finally ceased in exhaustion, Harry daubed the trickles of blood with a pillowcase, looking ashamed.

"I'm…"

"If you apologize one more time, Harry, I'll web your mouth shut." Peter pressed a gentle hand over Harry's mouth then slid closer. "Don't worry, I can manage myself. I won't let things get out of hand."

By now the room was brightening; Harry drew the curtains shut so it was dark once more then rejoined Peter.

"I wish I could love you," he whispered. "But it feels like… I'm afraid of losing myself, of giving in to the animal inside; that I'll lose track of where I end and the spider begins." Peter said nothing and Harry sighed. "I'm a shitty friend, aren't I? You go all out to save me and stand by me, you tell me you care for me and then I can't even give you anything in return."

"That's not what love's about," Peter whispered. "You said yourself, don't call it that if it's just guilt or what you think you 'should' do or anything less than genuine."

"It's poor repayment."

"If it's honest… well, then, it is what it is." He drew his arm across Harry's torso. "But I've said what I feel. And, not that I want to pull you one way or another, I don't want to see you ignore what makes you happy because you're afraid."

"I don't know…" Frustrated, he stood and disappeared into the shower.

"I'm patient; I can wait until you do," Peter whispered to himself once Harry left.

The water was still running when Peter heard a pounding at the apartment door. Pulling on pajama pants and a shirt, he staggered to the door and opened it to reveal a pair of New York's finest.

"Oh." Harry's voice came from behind him and he turned to see his friend, swathed in a towel, dripping water onto the floor.

"Harry Osborn?" The female asked uncertainly.

"That's me." Harry drew even with Peter who stepped backwards into the kitchen.

"Get dressed kid," the male cop sighed. "We need to talk."

"Alright," Harry murmured, his voice barely audible. He retreated into the bedroom, leaving Peter to stand awkwardly between the police and the rest of the apartment, wondering what to do or say.

For the second time that day, more fervently than before, he wished Norman had died in the fight.

OOO

A/N: So a bit slow moving but I hope I've done alright at getting at the conflict and kept the boys in character. I'm a bit swamped but I promise to keep updating. And any encouragement is, of course, quite welcome. ;)

Also, on a P/H related note, I finally read the Spidey 3 junior novel, which included this gem:

"…it had been a while since he and Harry had had a heart-to-heart. He didn't think Harry had a girlfriend. But he was rich and handsome… _Come to think of it,_ Peter mused, _why doesn't Harry have a girlfriend?_"

Do tell. Why doesn't he? I swear, you can't make this shit up. But it brought a smile to my face so I thought I'd share. :)


	10. Waiting

OOO

While Harry dressed Peter watched the officers carefully. They seemed annoyed at the wait and Peter felt increasingly ill at ease. He wished Harry would be back, he would know better than Peter how to deal with them. The clock on the wall sounded loud and he wanted to move, get something out of the fridge, sit, anything, but he felt as thought any movement would be pounced upon.

The clean, water-fresh scent of Harry hit his nose before he walked back through the doorway and Peter moved towards him eagerly.

"What do you want?" Harry asked in as level a voice as he could handle, Peter hovering at his side.

"Your father," the first one said. "Has he been here?"

"My father?" Harry's voice was low and terrified.

Peter turned so they wouldn't see the fear in his own expression.

"You might want to sit down for this," the second officer said in a tone that had a professionally sympathetic tone to it.

"I'll stand, thanks."

"Your father was involved in an incident. He was implicated in a crime and we have evidence linking him to the scene. Unfortunately, he fled before the police could arrive. Plus, our investigation has shown he has been working to empty out and divert whatever funds he can from all existing accounts under his name." The officer gazed at Harry. "You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

"Don't shelter him," the second officer added. "You realize that if you get involved with any crimes he might have committed you'll have to be charged too." She looked over at Peter. "And same goes for your roommate."

"He's not my roommate," Harry murmured. "He's my… he's… he's my boyfriend." Harry backed up and felt for Peter's hand. "And I have no idea where he went. My father and I aren't that close."

The officers exchanged glances; the boy was nearly cowering and had gone milk-white.

"Look, kid, if you don't tell us what you know we can't help you."

"I don't know anything!" Harry pleaded. "And I wouldn't help him."

"I don't think you're getting the message," the officer reiterated. "This isn't a traffic violation we're discussing. Your father is facing a number of very serious charges, including multiple counts of murder. You're better off if you come clean." He stepped closer. "We will find out if you've been involved and with him absent, you're going to be the one taking the fall."

"But I didn't… I don't have anything to do with this!" He looked from officer to office. "I'm not my father, I'm not hiding him. I didn't… I don't…"

"Harry didn't have anything to do with whatever his dad did," Peter joined in.

"Whatever his dad did?" The first moved forward aggressively. "You're telling me your father is a technological mass murderer and you had no idea? Don't give me that crap, you little punks!" He looked over at his partner, then back to Harry. "You know what I think? I think you were in on it. What'd you do, help daddy cover his tracks? Explain away his absences, help him move funds around, make your home into an arsenal…" He shook his head. "No way all that happens in your house and you don't know."

As Harry quailed Peter pushed himself between them. "This is where Harry lives and if you had anything solid, you would have arrested him," Peter said in a menacing whisper. "Get out."

"And we'll be right back if we get anything suggesting you knew the least little…"

"Out!" Peter's voice was startlingly forceful, foreign to even his own ears.

"You rethink this, you know where to find us," the other remarked. "And I'd visit the precinct, before we have to drag you down there."

The moment they crossed the threshold, Peter slammed the door shut.

"Harry? You alright?"

Harry shook his head. "No Pete. No… oh God. We need to get out of here." He began running his hands through his hair nervously. "How the fuck did he get away?"

"I'm sorry, I should have checked on him. I thought I had secured him… but he's on the run, Harry. The last thing he'll want is a confrontation with the two of us."

"If we stay, he'll know where we are and come back when he's ready." Harry shook his head again. "No, Pete, we're at risk as long as we stay here. Maybe he won't come back today or tomorrow – but he won't wait long, not when he's mad."

"Alright, alright, so we find a new place." Peter tried to reassure him and clasped his hands to still them. "We'll be alright, we'll find a place and we'll stay alert." He tightened his grip. "Maybe I handled the officers badly too. Maybe we should have told them. We still could, you know. They might catch him, put him away for good."

"I'll have to tell them everything. They'll find out." Harry sounded mortified. "You said you'd keep it a secret…"

"And I will." Peter leaned in and kissed him. "You can trust me. We'll do what we can and wait until they come to us, if they ever do. And Harry… you called me your boyfriend."

"Oh. Yeah. Well." He shrugged. "I thought that since, you know, we've slept together a couple times, live together… I mean, what else would you call it? And it's... I'd rather have things defined. That's all." He looked worried. "You're not… I mean, this won't make things weird, will it? Weirder. You're still my friend like you were?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Best friend, right?"

"Right." Harry went over to the window, as if looking to see his father on the horizon. "How do you think he broke free anyway?"

"I don't know." Peter sighed and put a hand on Harry's back. "Maybe the webbing job wasn't good enough. Maybe he was stronger than I expected. Maybe one of the bombs got close enough. Maybe… I don't know. And I don't know what he did escaping." He rubbed in circles. "But if they don't have any proof of our involvement… maybe he destroyed the evidence. Most of it was as incriminating to him as it was of us."

"I can't imagine even him thinking he could escape a conviction by blowing up half the house. Besides, he'd be more likely to pin it on us – make one of us out to be the Goblin."

"Well maybe he didn't want all his stuff falling into somebody else's hands. If he was running it isn't as though he could move it all and he couldn't hide it anymore. Blowing it up would be the only way to make sure he was the only user."

"That sounds more like him." Harry turned around. "But it still leaves us with a few big problems."

"I know him knowing our address isn't a good situation, but it's New York. Surely we can find something else."

"I'm not so sure. You heard what they said?"

"Who? The officers?"

"Yeah. According to them, my father grabbed whatever he could from his accounts. And I'm sure whatever he didn't take has been locked down for the investigation. The company too, probably – and I can only imagine the lawsuits that are going to come out when people discover that he was the Goblin. I'll be shocked if the company isn't filing for bankruptcy inside a month."

"You don't have anything in your name?"

"A trust fund. But it's on timed release – I can't just take all of the money out at once. And knowing my dad, well, if there was a way for him to get his hands on that too, he probably has."

"Oh. Well." Peter shook his head. "It will be fine. I can work, we'll find a place."

"Work?" Harry chuckled. "Pete, how do you expect to study and be Spider-Man and work on top of that? There's only so much that one person can do, only so many hours in the day."

"Well then what are we going to do, if your dad's left you with nothing…"

"_I_ could work."

Peter was silent and Harry wondered if he was going to last. He only raised an eyebrow, taken aback. "Harry, you sure? I mean, I know you don't have a lot of experience…"

"I'm not going to ask you to do everything. And I'm not that great at college, it's not like I'll be losing out. Lots of people work. Lots of people have to get a job rather than take classes."

Peter chewed his lip. "I'll be honest; this sounds like a mistake Harry. I don't doubt you or your good intentions. But I'm not sure... let's not make a hasty decision anyway. I have some savings – not enough to keep us here but enough for the moment – and we can at least explore our options before we do anything rash."

Harry leaned against the sill. "So what do we... oh shit." He caught sight of a flash and looked out the window. "Hell. The news must have gotten a hold of our address." He pulled the curtains shut. "They're already down there, circling like vultures. Is the door locked?"

Dashing over, Peter jammed the deadbolt into place and twisted the handle to be sure. "It is now."

"Good. Things might get ugly enough now that they probably know we're home. Come on, we need to draw all the blinds and everything before anybody decides to go hunting with a long range lens."

"You think they have any information about what actually happened with the police and your father?" Peter went into his bedroom and pulled down the blinds.

"Probably more than we do," Harry answered from his own room. "I don't know what they'll be allowed to broadcast on the news but we should at least get a little information."

"I can't believe these people," Peter fumed, resisting the urge to peek out. "Doesn't it occur to them you might want privacy? I mean, I'll take pictures, sure, but of public events and mostly of myself – I'm not prying into somebody else's life, into their home."

"It pays well," Harry said. "Making money of the embarrassment and misery of others."

"Well if I ever start doing that to make money you have every right to break my jaw." Peter sat on the couch. "So what are we supposed to do while they're waiting out there?"

"Stay put. Anything else is giving them what they want. And I know it will probably bother you but – no Spidey for a bit, alright? Until this begins to die down or we move, so that it'll be less likely someone will see you."

"I don't want my identity know either. Don't worry. Still, the question holds. What do we do besides go crazy waiting to stick our heads outside?"

"Uh… well…"

"And not that. For now."

"Laundry?" Harry suggested brightly. "And there's a sink full of dishes that are getting fuzzy and starting to smell. That could probably use some attention."

"Alright then. Do you want to start sorting the clothes and I'll load up the dishwasher?"

"Sure. No problem. By colors, right?"

"Yeah. Especially with red. You really don't want to mix that in with anything light colored. I tossed my suit in once with my underwear…"

"I'd always wondered about that."

"Well now you know." Peter laughed as he arranged cups. "I bleached them twice but I don't think it helped much."

"Think this is enough for one load?" Harry pointed to a pile of shirts.

"Probably. Then just follow the directions on the back of the detergent bottle."

"See?" Harry winked. "I'm not so bad at this chores thing."

Peter turned on the washer then went to help him load. "Once we get this started it will be a while before it finishes and we have to toss this into the dryer. Until then, want to watch a movie?"

"Sure. Whatever you like." Harry measured and poured in the detergent. "It'll be nice to get a bit of a rest anyway. Clean up around here, maybe get some work done. Take a break."

"Yeah," Peter murmured as he sat down on the couch. "A break."

A moment later, Harry sat down next to him and slipped his arm around Peter's shoulders. The movie itself never quite made it into the DVD player nor the shirts into the dryer. Instead, Harry stretched out and Peter cuddled into Harry while outside an angry world waited.

OOO


	11. Living Quarters

OOO

Harry woke up around evening, though it was hard to tell since the windows were all shut. Slipping his arm out from underneath Peter, he went around turning lights on and tossing the laundry into the dryer. Over on the couch, Peter yawned.

"Sorry for waking you," Harry murmured, setting the dryer cycle. "I didn't mean too."

"That's alright. The dishes should be clean too, so I guess I can put them up." He walked into the kitchen. "Are you hungry? You want to do something for dinner?"

"What do we have?"

"Let me see…" Peter swung the door open. "Not a whole lot, unfortunately. There's milk… soda… cold pizza…"

"That'll work for now."

"Here you go." Peter passed him the box and Harry threw a few pieces onto a place before nuking them in the microwave. "Any ideas for not starving to death over the next few days?"

"Maybe sneaking out once it gets dark?" Harry watched the pizza rotate and sizzle. "Probably have to be you though. I'm afraid I would be…"

"Yeah, no problem." Peter pulled out a can of Pepsi and one of Sprite. "We can make a list if you like, so I don't forget anything."

"Sure, sure." Harry sighed as the microwave beeped and pulled out the plate. "I still can't believe this is even happening."

"I know." Peter grabbed a handful of napkins off the counter and went with the pop to sit down on the couch. "I… I'm sorry, but I don't know what to tell you, don't know how to fix it."

"Don't try." Harry sat down, put the pizza in front of them and grabbed a piece. "Don't try to fix anything. You don't have to. And you know, let's not talk about it, let's just try and enjoy what we have as long as we can."

Peter nodded and chewed. "You know," he said, after taking a drink, "I have to say that I feel a little guilty."

"About what? This wasn't your fault, you know that," Harry said, gnawing on a piece of crust.

"Don't take this the wrong way. But, well, I'm kind of glad." He looked at Harry apologetically. "Before this I was alone in my situation and I couldn't tell anybody and I didn't think there was anybody who would understand. It feels a little selfish, but now there's nothing keeping me from telling you, now that you know what I feel like. And I feel awful because I know it's not the same for you, that I have the better half of it. But it was so hard to keep my secret, especially from you."

"You didn't have to keep it a secret," Harry said, finishing his pizza and stretching out. "But I can see why you did. I wouldn't want to say anything to anybody else now. Since we're in a sharing mood, to be honest, I'm scared but I'm glad too." He shook his head. "You kept cutting out and disappearing and I couldn't understand it. And now that I know it's so much easier being with you, knowing what you do." He fiddled with the tab on his pop can. "And thanks for helping me maybe stand up a little to my father."

"I didn't… I knew he was rough on you but I never thought it would be this bad."

"He did something to himself, he must have," Harry sighed. "It has to be that treatment. Doesn't matter though; he did what he did, made his choices. And I always wanted to please him, you know? Maybe you can't. I mean, Aunt May would probably love you no matter what, but I only wanted him to be proud of me. I was willing to do so much but – he would never be pleased, would he?"

"Don't worry about pleasing him. Please me," Peter whispered, taking the can out of Harry's hands and setting it on the table.

The familiar tingle came back and Harry willingly slid down on the couch, letting Peter climb on top of him. He didn't vocalize it, but, pulling Peter down, he felt grateful for the new, different stability in their relationship. Thinking of Peter as his boyfriend was somewhat strange; but it was also somehow a relief. He tugged Peter tighter, gasped as they moved together.

"You wouldn't leave me for MJ, would you?" Harry panted. "You won't leave me? You won't cheat on me?"

"No, Harry, no, no." Peter pressed forward. "Never, never."

Harry flexed and the couch beneath them creaked. The collapsed and Harry exhaled, then pressed his lips against Peter's before falling back down onto the cushions. Affection he didn't need to earn, he realized, felt good.

Looking down, Peter smiled and mussed Harry's damp locks then kissed his forehead. With Harry, he didn't need to be anybody but himself, didn't need to worry about secrets or nervousness or trying to act a certain way or make sure he didn't trip up.

And that, Peter thought as he pillowed his head on Harry's stomach, felt wonderful.

OOO

After a few days the surveillance cleared and Peter was able to slip out to shop or to go to class. Harry, however, for fear of being recognized and fear of his own body, stayed inside. Each time that Peter came home, he found Harry there, cleaning or relaxing. Bit by bit, he noticed too, Harry was becoming more comfortable with webbing. His room was filled, wall to wall, with a maze of webs and at unexpected moments, he would web instead of reach for something.

Once Harry started doing it, Peter began to as well until it seemed almost normal. The only difference was that Peter webbed outside as Spider-Man.

"What's it like?" Harry asked one day, looking out the window wistfully. "Going from building to building."

"At first it was nauseating," Peter admitted. "I practically lost my lunch the first couple times and nearly slammed into buildings too. But now that I'm used to it – absolutely thrilling. It's like flying." Peter stood next to him. "You should come with me. Get out a little."

"I have no costume."

"We could work something up for you. Or you could borrow one of mine – we're about the same size. I mean, you wear all my other clothes."

It was true; somewhere along the line the two ceased to split up most of the laundry and, without even asking, simply wore whatever they wished without worrying about who owned it.

"No, no," Harry protested. "Too skintight. I wouldn't be comfortable."

"Why not?" Peter urged. "You're not fat or anything. It will fit you well."

Harry shook his head again. "Peter haven't you noticed…"

"What?"

"Never mind," he sighed. "I have to probably leave anyway, though. We're running out of money Pete," he murmured.

"Yeah, I know." Peter chewed his lip in a worried way.

"We've been meaning to talk about this."

"Well then. Let's talk." He looked at Harry. "I know you're not… I can get a job."

"Pete, I'll find work. It's my fault we're here in this place that's way beyond our means to begin with and I'm the one who dropped out. You have way too much to do. Let me, alright?"

"But if you're uncomfortable…"

"I've gotta go outside at some point, right? Better sooner than later. And it isn't fair for me to ask you to do everything. Don't be like that. I know you have this… this thing for saving the day and being sacrificing but this is something I can do."

Peter nodded. "Well, where are you planning on looking?"

"I don't know yet. Small stuff, places where they hopefully won't know me – and places were I won't run into anybody. But job or no job – I think we're going to have to move Pete."

"I thought as much," he said. "I take it all of your father's assets are cut off to you?"

"Until they catch him. Otherwise the lawyers claim that he could be using them to evade the law."

"And there's nothing you can do?"

"I'm trying Peter, don't think I'm not. But I can't prove I'm not assisting him. And other than the trust fund I really have no right to any of his money, not unless he's dead or I take some legal action. Which I, again, can't take until they've caught him."

"Are you still getting money from the trust fund?"

"A little, but not enough to cover this place, let alone living expenses."

Again, Peter nodded. "Well… well, there might be one way we don't have to move," he said in a nervous, quiet tone. "But I mean… this might be a really bad idea and I don't know if you would be alright with it…"

"What are you thinking?"

"Well you and I really don't need to bedrooms right?" Peter's talking began to speed up and he played with a button on his shirt nervously. "I mean, we sleep in the same bed most every night and we could use that other bedroom… look, if one of us moved in with the other there's more than enough space here for a third person to help split the rent." He finished with a gasp.

"Split the… Peter, have you lost your mind?" Harry scoffed. "You just started to get used to not hiding the Spidey thing and now you want ot go back to hiding and lurking? And what's going to happen to me? We have no idea the long term impact of what my father did and you just want to bring in some stranger to gawk and maybe find out…"

"Not a stranger," Peter interrupted.

"What?"

"It doesn't have to be a stranger," he said in an edgy, worried voice.

"Pete," he laughed, "not to put too fine a point on it, but who else do we know and trust? I didn't keep in touch and never liked anyone but you and unless you know somebody from college that well…"

"MJ," Peter interrupted a second time and saw Harry pale, speechless. "And I'm not trying to put anything over on you, honest I'm not, but I ran into her the other day and I told her a little bit – just a little, don't look at me like that – about us and that we were _living,_ living together and she didn't even really seem that surprised." He paused to take a breath. "And she's living in the city anyway and probably paying more than it would be to split it up with us for here and she'd be a really good roommate, she keeps things clean and she understands and we were all friends so I think we could trust her…"

"Are you sure?" Harry whispered. "That this might not get her hurt?"

"I thought about that," Peter murmured. "But who would even know about the connection, especially since I'm dating you? Only your father knows – and I know we talked about moving because of that but… Harry, even if we moved, do you really think we could hide from him?"

"Probably not," Harry conceded. "And maybe… I don't like giving him the satisfaction of knowing he disrupted our lives either. But Peter, this MJ thing…"

"Can you think of any other way? Even working, it's not easy to find a nice place. And I know that's what you're used to, wouldn't want you living in some rat hole."

Harry drew a deep breath. "This is a lot to think about Peter." He looked him in the eyes. "You told her about us? This isn't going to be… I mean, I dated her and you wanted to. How awkward is this going to get?"

"I don't know," Peter admitted. "But it might not be so bad. And like I said, it might actually be a better way of keeping her safe if your father blows back into town. We could discuss it at least. See how she feels, talk about it."

With a sigh, Harry went and got his cell phone. "I'll have her come over," he said as he searched the list of numbers.

When she arrived a little over an hour later, Peter ushered her in with a nervous smile.

"Haven't been here in a while," she said conversationally.

"I know. Need anything to drink?" He said as he led her into the kitchen.

"No, I'm good. Hi Harry," she said with a little wave to him from where he was already seated at the kitchen table.

"Hey," he said with a nod.

"So obviously we have a lot to talk about," Peter began as he pulled out a chair for MJ before taking a seat himself. "And I, uh, know this might be a little strange. But hear us out, alright?"

"Go on," she said. "I'm listening."

OOO


	12. Respite and Decline

OOO

The discussion – Harry called it a discussion and not argument because both of them were so nervous and apologetic that he couldn't really say they were angry – had lasted for nearly the entire hour prior to Mary Jane's arrival. As soon as Harry called her, they went around and around about what was fair to tell her, what she needed to know, what either was worried the other didn't want her to know and whether the whole idea ought to be scrapped. By the time she'd arrived, they still hadn't come to a consensus.

But as they started talking, one explanation demanded another until everything was laid bare. They needed her as a roommate because they couldn't keep the place otherwise and they needed it to be private. This demanded an explanation of what had happened with Harry's money which meant bringing up his father and all he had done, much of which she'd only heard a muddled version of on the news. The need for privacy lead to Peter's secret which lead to Harry's abilities which finally lead back to Norman and what was going to happen to Harry.

When she heard about the experiment, about Harry, her eyes welled and Harry thought it strange because it wasn't happening to _her_.

"You won't say anything, will you?" Peter asked earnestly as Harry stared at the floor, as if he were waiting for it to swallow him up. "We only told you because you're our friend and we didn't want you… we thought you should know what you were getting into. And because we trust you." He looked at Mary Jane intently. "If you're mad, if you don't want to, just say so," He murmured as she sobbed. "I'm sorry, we shouldn't have asked. Are you going to be okay? Is there anything…"

"I'm fine!" She looked over. "I'm so sorry Harry, your father… I mean, I had no _idea_…"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said in a low but firm voice. "I just wanted you to know." He looked up. "Don't make a big deal of it. It's _not_ a big deal. You probably won't even notice." A hopeful lie. "And if you can't deal with it, you don't have to. We'll work something else out."

She sniffed and shuddered and blew her nose into the paper towel that Peter handed her. Then steadying herself, she crumpled the paper in her hands and shook her head.

"No. It's fine. I can deal with it. This is all so sudden, that's all." She took a shaky breath then looked at Peter for a moment, wistful. She opened her mouth but then close it again, reconsidering. She smiled and stood. "I guess I should start to pack, shouldn't I?"

She went to the door while Harry stayed in the chair, frozen. Peter glanced at him then went to the door just as she was stepping out.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again.

"It's fine. I just misunderstood some things," she said, looking at him ruefully.

"We didn't mean to hurt you." He looked injured and abashed.

"You didn't," she replied. "Not really. "Not _much_," she admitted. "And it is a lot to take in. But if it makes it any easier, makes you feel any better, I'm glad you asked. You're my friends and I don't know what I'd do without you." Leaning in, she kissed him on the cheek. "Hello and goodbye, Peter," she said before going down the stairs.

Peter went back inside and saw that Harry hadn't moved. "Are you alright?"

"Mary Jane is moving in," he said in a stoic voice. "That was what we were hoping for."

"Do you think it was a mistake?" Peter moved towards him. "Maybe we didn't talk enough about this. It was really sudden. I sure she would understand if…"

"No," he cut Peter off with a shake of his head. "It was right. We couldn't cut her out of our lives. And this way we'll have somebody besides us to keep us sane." He sighed. "But she pities me and I don't like it."

"She'll get better."

"Yeah. Maybe." He looked up. "So are you moving into my room or am I moving into yours?"

OOO

When MJ first made the connection between Peter's revelation he was Spider-Man and their conversation in the hospital, she felt like she'd caught a glimpse of something that could have been. She wondered if she ought to feel upset that something had been taken from her, but then reminded herself that nothing had really been taken from her, _per se_. It hadn't been working out with Harry and she and Peter had never really been and Spider-Man was Spider-man, a kiss in the rain but heroic and distant even when she knew who was beneath the mask.

At first she wasn't sure how to reconcile everything in her mind – nothing except for the truth about Harry's father, which she couldn't say surprised her at all. He always was a bastard, she though with odd satisfaction, a vague sense of vindication. Then she chastised herself; her humiliation at Thanksgiving was nothing compared to Harry. The first month, she glanced at him from the edges of her vision, wondered if he was alright and whether anything was happening.

He never said, though, and she supposed – hoped – he was talking to Peter.

She thought about it, all of it, constantly for the first month. She didn't know whether she'd ever be used to the odd hours, the webbing she sometimes found sticking in odd places, the sheer strangeness of living with a _hero_.

But the webbing normalized just as the thought of them as a couple had. Peter's suit was simply another piece of laundry, their webs were just another way to reach for things and Harry seemed alright so that she wondered if her worrying was warranted. After that first month of moving around unsurely, laughing awkwardly and bumping into each other as they all tried to get used to a new routine, things got better.

She teased them about being her gay boyfriends and they teased her about being a diva. They each found jobs, even if they didn't always manage to keep them for very long, and while they weren't wealthy the rent got paid; and if Harry was uncomfortable about that he never complained to her knowledge. The guys helped her with her lines for auditions, she helped Peter fix his suit, and both she and Peter tried to be there for Harry trudge through the legal battles his father had caused.

Mary Jane found that any remaining tension between the three of them evaporated when their roles became defined and neither was interested in her – a bit of a blow to the ego but also a relief. She began seeing other men, though not bringing them home, and for a while all was right in their small corner of the world.

It only lasted a few months, however, before everything began to fall apart.

OOO

Peter, still sleepy, looked down at Harry whose eyes were still shut. There was a bright redness along his jaw that Peter hadn't noticed the night before and, concerned, he reached down to touch it. Harry jerked away from beneath his fingertips.

"Stop," he murmured.

"Sorry." Peter withdrew. "You've got this red blotch along your jaw." Silence. "I was wondering what it was. Do you know?" Harry didn't respond. "Harry? Is something wrong?"

Harry turned over with an angry flop. "It's razor burn, alright?" He snapped. "I keep shaving but I've stopped growing facial hair so all I do is scrape the skin over and over even though there's really no need because at least that way it seems like… whatever. Satisfied? It's nothing." He turned over and pressed his eyes shut.

"Okay." Peter was quiet and abashed.

They were little changes, he thought as he stumbled into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Not that he minded, but every Harry seemed increasingly on edge about every small matter. He'd complimented Harry a week earlier on the softness of his hair and sent him into a bad mood all evening. He tensed more when they had sex, bit Peter more often and shied away afterwards. And even though they shared a bedroom, had been dating for months, rather than growing more at ease Harry was less so. He'd taken to dressing in the bathroom after he showered and leaving his shirt on and staying under the covers, subtle ways of keeping Peter from seeing him naked. Eventually they'd stopped being intimate, despite the drives that were wracking both their bodies.

Pressing the matter did no good; assurances that he didn't mind were met with sneers or admonishments that him not minding wasn't the point. There was no way to make it better with words, so Peter left the matter there. He did what he could physically as well, to demonstrate to Harry that he loved his body. But that only seemed to make it worse, as if he was afraid that taking compliments meant accepting the changes, meant enjoying whatever he was becoming.

Even though they were technically together, a wall was starting to form between them.

'_A wall of Norman's making,'_ Peter though with a bitter, sick feeling. He was not a bitter person, not a vengeful person, but when he was around Harry and saw him hurting, something deep stirred and berated him for not killing Norman.

Matters had gone on like that for a while and they never talked about it. Peter swished and spat out the toothpaste with a sigh. That morning was simply one more in a long line of evading the issue.

He came into the kitchen and found Mary Jane pouring coffee.

"Morning." She gave him a nod and he took a box and a bowl out of the cupboard.

"Yeah," he said, going into the fridge for milk.

"Something wrong?" She asked as she stirred in sugar.

"Nothing." He shrugged and poured the milk into the bowl of granola.

MJ put her hand on his shoulder so that he turned towards her. "Harry?" She mouthed silently.

Reluctant, he paused then nodded. "I don't know what to do," he admitted in a whisper and sat down with a glance at the door of their bedroom.

"Wait?" She suggested with a sympathetic look.

"I guess." He quickly finished off the cereal before shoving his suit and books into his backpack. "Do you have work tonight?"

"No, but I'll be gone. I'm going out with John. And if I'm lucky I won't be back until morning." She smiled. "I really hope you two get to know him."

"As long as he's nothing like his father." Peter managed a grin. "Otherwise I'd wonder what you were thinking."

"John's a sweetheart," she assured him as she took a sip. "But you'd better get going or else you're going to miss class again. Stay safe!" She called after him as he glanced at the clock then barreled out of the door.

Peter spent the day in class wondering how he could approach Harry. He didn't want to talk, didn't want to see doctors or see if he could get any kind of help even from other people in the meta-human community. Now he was shutting out Peter and Peter had no idea what to do about that. Problems were easier if you could pummel them and web them up, he thought.

Distracted, he tried to scrawl notes but it was mostly a waste. After class he meant to go home and check on Harry but he'd only gotten to drop off his backpack before sirens drew him out again. He wasn't even sure Harry had been there though he didn't have time to check. Instead he followed the sirens to a bank where a guy dressed like a rhinoceros was trying to smash down the door to the vault.

It was late by the time he was finished with the incident and with patrolling. There were clouds in front of the moon so he could barely see to get back inside through the fire escape. Inside, he found the bed empty, save for the webbing normally draped around it, but the sheets mussed and wondered if Harry had even made the bed. Then he realized the shower was running. Pressing his ear to the door, he heard faint sobbing.

"Harry?" He twisted the knob but it was locked. "Harry, are you alright?"

"_Shut up, Peter!"_ Harry screamed from inside and Peter backed away from the door.

Still unable to see well, he flipped on the lights. Then he glanced again at the bed and his stomach turned. There was a large blotch of still-damp blood soaking into the sheets on Harry's side. Peter stared at it, rooted to the floor, watching as the bright red dried and gave way to rust brown; and then he sank against the wall, nausea and frustration building. Hero of the city, he thought bitterly, and he couldn't help the person he loved.

He listened to the water run, punctuated every now and again by a cry, and wondered what he was supposed to do _now_.

OOO

A/N: M for the ending and upcoming chapters as things get bad again. Still don't think I've quite achieved what I was hoping for with the tone and progression of the story but I'll still try to finish and make it as good as I can.


	13. Label

OOO

"Pete, what are you doing on the floor?"

Peter rubbed his eyes and looked up to see Mary Jane staring at him. The apartment was quiet so he assumed that at some point Harry had either turned the water off or it had been cut off. The door was still closed but he wasn't sure if Harry left.

"Harry locked himself in," Peter told her sleepily.

"Locked himself in? Why? Did you get him out?"

"He yelled at me. He wanted to be left alone." Peter blinked; it had to be five in the morning and he was stiff from sleeping against the wall. "Something… something happened."

"What happened? Peter, you shouldn't have left him in there! If he was hurt or upset, he could have done something to himself." She stood. "And he's not in the rest of the apartment so he's probably still holed up inside. Unlock that door right now."

"I don't think he wants us in there," Peter told her uncomfortably.

"You can't leave him alone if he's hurt. Even if he doesn't want you there, you need to be there for him."

"MJ," he whispered, "I don't think you understand."

"Open that door," she insisted. "I'll try to break it down myself if you won't help!"

"Let's knock one more time, okay? See if he answers." When Peter tried, he didn't even get a response and Mary Jane glared. "Alright, fine. You win." He shouldered the door and knocked it though.

Harry was sleeping in the bathtub, wearing only a wife beater and with the shower curtain partially pulled over him like a blanket. One arm was draped over the side of the tub and water was pooled around his body. Damp curls clung to his skin and Peter wondered how long ago he'd fallen asleep.

"Harry?" He shook the other's shoulder. "Harry, you've gotta get up."

Bleary, Harry opened his eyes and frowned. "I told you not to come in here," he said in a hoarse voice.

"Are you okay?" Mary Jane poked her head in.

"You know what? Why don't you both get out?" He blushed and reached for the pants that had been thrown on the floor the previous evening. He didn't put them on but instead covered his lap up with them. "I told you I didn't want you in here."

"Harry, it's alright, I know you're scared." Mary Jane entered. "I went through…"

"You know nothing about it and no you didn't," he snapped. "Stop saying you did, I can't stand that! You're trying to pretend we share something but it's so _fake_. And don't condescend to me like I'm some 12-year-old girl either. These things are supposed to happen to _you_, but not to me."

"It'll be alright…"

"Quit saying that!" He bellowed. "Out!"

"MJ…" Peter began hesitantly.

"Fine." She sighed then got up and left. "I'll launder the sheets."

Left alone with Peter, Harry turned away. Peter didn't say anything, didn't think there was anything to say. Instead, he kept contact with Harry's skin, warming up the clammy flesh with his own body, and waited. He hoped that Harry, given time, would talk of his own accord – and he was right. The silence didn't last for long.

"I was ready for a lot of things," he murmured. "I braced myself, even though I was scared. I kept googling things like hormone replacement therapy, trying to figure out what might happen ahead of time and I prepared for the worst. But even with that, even then, I thought the changes were only going to be cosmetic, told myself that there were ways to deal with that.

"And then other things started to change. I should have known when I stopped shaving, that's not supposed to happen if the hormones shift. And then I noticed differences in other places. Nothing disappeared, exactly, but I began feeling a lot of pain, seeing slight alterations. I've been taking a bunch of stuff for that but it never really helped. I stopped looking, stopped feeling, tried to zone out whenever I had to go to the bathroom because if I looked and saw that would mean it was happened. And then yesterday… then _that_."

The shirt wasn't wet enough to cling, but when Peter looked down Harry crossed his arms. There were red marks on his chest that disappeared into the fabric, irritated skin that looked painful to Peter's eyes.

"You've been taping yourself down."

"Yeah. It hurts sometimes, gets sore. But I'm not walking out looking like I have a rack. I can live with the tape, but not with people laughing at me. I'm not going to be stared at like I'm some kind of freak."

"Even here, at home?" Peter set his head on Harry's shoulder. "If it hurts you should be able to be comfortable here at least."

"I didn't want you to know." He shrugged. "And I thought if you touched me too much you would feel the tape. Seeing me, that was… I wasn't ready for that." He saw Peter staring, blushing, and rolled his eyes. "What are you… you can't be serious, Pete. You are. _Fine_. Whatever. Feel them. I don't care." As Peter slid a timid hand underneath his shirt, Harry smiled a bitter smile. "You play the gentleman, but you're the same as everybody else, aren't you?"

"Maybe not _everybody_," Peter whispered with a feigned innocent air, petted and then felt the familiar rush of his cravings. Night after night he'd been subduing them, deferring to Harry's want for distance.

Now it was like the first time all over, painful and fearful but needy.

"I didn't think I would change on the inside." He leaned over to keep contact while Peter tried to wrestle off his pants.

Peter wanted to tell him that he still was the same on the inside, that the body as a whole was exterior to who Harry was – but he didn't feel up to a metaphysical conversation and suspected that Harry would have even less tolerance for the subject.

"And when I started bleeding, I mean… I almost puked," Harry admitted. "Not that I'm afraid of blood or anything but it wasn't… I'm so _scared_."

"Shhhh, shhhh." Peter kissed him as he crawled into the tub, lifting Harry up and closer to him.

"I didn't know what else to do, I couldn't sit on the toilet all night and I didn't want to get blood over everything." He ran a leg down the length or Peter's as he stretched out. "The tub made sense because you could wash it away…"

"Be quiet." Peter told him directly, softly and without malice. He looked for Harry, a silent request for permission but found hesitance at first. Then Harry turned his head, nodded, assented, and Peter pressed forward, finding the newly created crevasse.

"Gnh," Harry made a sound between a whimper and a grunt and slid on the porcelain surface of the tub as Peter rocked.

"Too long, too long," he murmured. "You should have let me… Ah!"

While Peter nearly collapsed on top of Harry, the other reached behind and turned on the shower. Needles of hot water splashed down on them, washing away the fluids that had trickled and spurted out during the encounter. Reaching down, Harry's fingertips came away stained. He stuck his hand under the water and the blood washed away, but he knew it was temporary.

"Talk to MJ," Peter told him as he passed Harry a towel.

When they exited, however, she had already anticipated them. Peter flushed.

"How long were you there? Were you listening?" He asked in a mortified tone.

"I brought you these." She handed Harry a cardboard box, ignoring the question. "If you need help, let me know. But there are instructions inside on a slip of paper."

Harry looked down at the floor. "Thanks," he answered, taking the books with numb hands.

"I'm not trying to embarrass you," she sighed, then left for her own room.

"I'll put on some fresh sheets." Peter went towards the closet where they kept the linens, but Harry grabbed him by the wrist.

"Forget about that for a minute, okay? Do you think we could just, you know, lie down for a while?" He looked abashed. "I've been avoiding you but I've wanted to… I've missed, you know, _stuff_."

It would have been an opportune moment, Peter thought briefly, to tease him. But he looked anxious and Peter, so frequently the object of abuse in high school, was not one to torment, especially not Harry.

"I'll get the sheets while you use those." He pressed the box to Harry's chest and gave a little tug to the towel wrapped around Harry's waist. "And then we can do whatever you want. Just lie around, hang out."

"Okay, okay." He stepped back reluctantly and came out minutes later, looking no different outwardly save for the flush that was become ever-present on his cheeks. "Sorry for the wait. It was kind complicated," he mumbled.

He didn't want to talk about it, Peter knew, so he shrugged to close off the line of conversation and jumped onto the mattress. When they were both on, they took turns webbing a net around the bed until it was so dense that they could barely see the room around them. Hanging from the ceiling like gossamer curtains, the webbing covered them from view, gave the impression of a whited-out world with nothing beyond themselves.

"What do I do?" Harry whispered.

The question, Peter knew, was rhetorical; they'd had the discussion before. Harry was unwilling to see a doctor of any sort or go to anybody for help in performing an operation or doing anything experimental to reserve the change. The plan, at least thus far, had always been to silently cope, pretend it wasn't happening and do his best to give an outward appearance of the same.

Advice was something he neither wanted nor needed, so Peter tightened his grip. There was nothing to say that wouldn't border on an outright lie; no assurances that it would be alright were worth anything, no suggestions would help him decide, no compliments would help to salvage his already crumpled self-esteem.

Peter had been his friend long enough to know that what Harry really wanted, what Harry had _always_ wanted, was something to fill the empty spaces, assuage the loneliness. That was something better achieved without words, with touch and sensation. Peter felt for Harry's spinnerets, something he knew they both enjoyed, and pulled their bodies closer. He could feel Harry's breasts pressed up against him but they were both too tired to feel anything other than warmth and exhaustion.

Before long, Peter felt the wetness of Harry's mouth latch on to his neck, his teeth graze against his skin. Usually Peter would have gently pushed him off, but this time he made no move. He could always wear a turtleneck or high-collared shirt, he told himself. No need to disrupt Harry for something so trivial.

Still, there was the problem – if you could call it a 'problem' exactly – of the future. Right now they were getting along, barely. But Harry hardly left for anything but his job, and sometimes not even for that; he'd lost more than one job by refusing to go in some days. The steps he was taking put him in pain and the changes were moving him further and further along.

"You have to decide," Peter whispered back, a belated response to the question.

"Do you ever worry?" Harry asked after a moment, taking his mouth off Peter's neck.

"About what? Mutating? The spider stuff?"

"About what you are. Not the spider stuff, sexually I mean." He rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. "Have you ever _thought_ about that?"

"I don't understand."

"If you like me and you still like me regardless of whatever freakish shape my body takes, what does that mean? How can you say you like men or women if…"

"Harry, I like _you_," Peter interrupted and shifted slightly to pull up the covers. "And if you need a term for me, you can always say bisexual. That should cover most anything."

"As if it was an easy division into two categories."

"_I_ didn't say it was; you wanted a label."

"Well why not?" He sounded injured. "You can get by without labels. Clothing, forms that ask your gender, restrooms, they all need you to know and I don't and I can't say. Both? Neither? It wouldn't be so bad if there were terms, if I could call it something."

"Transgender," Peter suggested, his hand stretching out across Harry's stomach. "There's that."

"And how many 'transgender' bathrooms have you seen? I don't have anywhere to go. And I don't want to go, I like… I liked two categories. It was stable, it made _sense_." He bit his lip. "Peter, can you be honest with me?"

"What?"

"Could I pass as a woman?"

"Honestly?" Peter looked up at him. "No. Your jaw is too pronounced and your hips are all wrong. Your frame doesn't look the right way at all."

"That's what I thought."

Peter thought about suggesting testosterone or an operation but again, held his tongue. Instead, he slid over and kissed Harry. Harry nipped at Peter and pushed against him. The night had been long and uncomfortable and Harry was asleep before long, Peter watching him though tired himself. He knew Harry was different but nothing, to him, seemed unnatural or unexpected.

Beautiful and ours, the spider whispered.

OOO


	14. Careless

OOO

For Harry, the primary advantage of being a shelf stocker was that by the time he went to work, the store was usually empty and most of the clientele that did appear were usually weirder than he was. Nobody bothered him. Normally. But there was always the off-night.

"You look familiar!" A girl with a few bags of chips peered at him while her boyfriend grabbed beer out of a case. "Have I, like, seen you before or something?"

"Dunno," he shrugged and went back to stocking orange juice.

"But you look really… what's your name?"

"Harry." He thought about lying for a moment but knew he was wearing a nametag. Store policy. And being caught in a lie would only make any eventual recognition painfully awkward.

"Doesn't he look familiar?" She tugged on the sleeve of her boyfriend's jacket.

"I guess." He hefted the 24-pack of Miller into the cart. "Wait yeah… I think I have seen you before!" He snapped his fingers. "You're that rich kid whose dad got hauled off for trying to explode half the city!"

Harry's face flushed and he stocked faster, not saying anything.

"Dude, what the fuck are you doing in a place like this? Wasn't your dad, like, a billionaire?"

"Maybe it isn't him," the girl whispered when Harry didn't say anything.

"Well you're the one who said he looked familiar and I could swear the papers said that kid's name was Harry…"

"Look, I've really got to finish this and I'm sure you have shopping to do, so…" He desperately hoped they would take the not so subtly hint.

"Yeah, quit staring!" The girl playfully slapped her boyfriend's arm and flounced away.

"Sucks to be you, dude," the guy chuckled.

Harry ducked his head and glanced at his wrist, counting down the time until his shift would be over. He finished up the case but could still hear the couple talking a few aisles away, laughing every so often. He couldn't help wondering if it was about him. So he'd come down in the world – so what? It happened to a lot of people. Maybe the kids he'd gone to all the prep schools with wouldn't give him the time of day anymore, but he'd never liked them to begin with. And he'd never tried to flaunt his wealth. Well, not really. It wasn't karmic; it was just unfair.

His one relief was that comparative poverty was the only thing people saw. Fortunately it was colder again so he could wear a hoodie and get away with not taping himself down so tightly. After finishing his shift, he quickly browsed the shelves and grabbed a few items – corkscrew pasta, a jar of tomato sauce, grated parmesan – figuring he could make dinner the next night.

When he got to the register there was a set of adolescence, half of them looking high or hung over, buying a stack of junk food and he heard more pointing and whispering. Checking out as quickly as possible, he made his way home in a haze, determined to shut out everything around him until he got to the apartment.

He finally reached home early in the morning, late enough that Mary Jane was asleep but too early to find Peter home from patrol yet. He put the food away in the cupboards and changed into night clothes before sitting down on the bed to wait for Peter to come in.

"You're up? It's late," Peter whispered. "And you had work. I thought you would have been…"

"I wanted to wait for you," he murmured. "Peter? In high school… I wasn't a jerk, was I?"

"What? No." He shook his head as he shucked the costume. "Your dad was, but you weren't."

Harry nodded.

"Did something go wrong?" Peter asked. "You seem a bit out of it."

"I just… Peter, could we…?"

"Sure, Harry. Sure." Peter set aside the pajamas he was going to wear and instead took off his underwear before setting about methodically divesting Harry of his clothes. He looked at Harry with the wide eyes Harry was so accustomed to by now, with a look he had grown to rely on.

Even after everything, Harry thought as they spun their webs and Peter crawled on top and slid inside him, Peter had somehow found a way to make him feel attractive no matter what anybody else thought. So he was on the outside; but he'd always been on the outside, in one way or another. What mattered, he finally felt, was that Peter was with him.

So long as Peter was they, maybe there was room for optimism. Maybe he could handle what came his way. Then Peter came and smiled down at him and a laugh slipped from between Harry's teeth.

It had been worth waiting up.

OOO

Mary Jane flipped another page of her Cosmo magazine. "Hey, Harry?" She looked over at the stove where he was setting a pot full of water onto a burner. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead," he said with a shrug as he turned on the gas flame.

"Which do you like better, vaginal sex or anal sex?"

"MJ!" Peter looked up from his homework, scandalized.

At the stove, Harry set down the jar of pasta sauce he'd pulled out with a clunk and turned around to face her, blushing in confusion. "What the hell kind of a question is _that!_" He sputtered.

"Well, I think it's a sensible one," she huffed. "You would know, wouldn't you? I mean, of the three of us." She chewed her lip and flipped another page. "John and I have been talking about, you know, mixing things up a little and I wanted to know what your perspective on it was."

"It's a stupid question," he huffed, turning around and tossing a pinch of salt into the boiling water before adding the pasta and stirring. "But if you must know I prefer anal."

"You do?" Peter looked over at him with a distraught look. "But I've been… I mean, we've been…"

"I know _you_ like it better that way." Harry shrugged. "Didn't think it was that big of a deal. Besides, you're better when you're assertive and you're more assertive… you know, that way." The wooden spoon clunked against the sides of the pot as he stirred. "I can't believe we're even _having_ this conversation."

"I think being comfortable with yourself and what you like is important," MJ said with a docile shrug. "It's not a big deal."

"Maybe not to you," Harry snapped. "Peter and I happen to prefer having a little more privacy and discretion."

"It isn't like I'm a stranger," she laughed. "You don't have to be embarrassed around _me_."

"Yeah, right," Harry muttered, pouring out the pasta into a colander. "Practically gave Pete a heart attack."

"He's fine," MJ said with a roll of her eyes. "So while we're on the subject…"

"We're still on the subject?" Peter squirmed uncomfortably. "Do we have to still be on the subject?"

"I'm not answering another," Harry said stiffly, stirring the sauce into the pot of pasta.

"Just one more quick question!" She pled with a smile. "And actually, it was a question for Peter, not you."

"What?" Peter mumbled as he looked down at his page of equations.

"Does period sex bother you much?"

"_MJ!_" He wailed, snapping the graphite in his pencil.

"It's this really an appropriate conversation to be having right before dinner?" Harry threw down a hot pad and set the pasta on top of it while Peter stood and went to get out plates. "It's a little bit gross, to be honest. And anyway, we've haven't had to worry about that for a while. The problem stopped."

"What?" MJ frowned. "What do you mean the problem stopped?"

"I mean, I haven't been getting them any more." He heaped pasta onto one of the plates Peter handed him. "Buddy, could you get the parmesan out of the fridge?"

"Sure." Peter set the rest of the plates down and turned to the fridge.

"Harry, they don't just _stop_."

"Well mine did. I don't know. My genetics are so fucked up now, who knows what's happening down there?" He grumbled. "Could we have dinner and not talk about this?"

"Harry, this could be important!" She closed the magazine and tossed it aside. "How many did you have? And when did you stop getting them?"

"I don't know!" He shrugged defensively and poured cheese onto the pasta. "Two or three? A few?" He shoved a forkful into his mouth. "And maybe a month or two ago. Why?"

"Have you been using protection?" She eyeballed them both as she filled her own plate. There was a long pause and Harry and Peter looked at each other, neither saying anything. _"You haven't been using protection?"_ She screamed.

"So? It's not like Peter's been seeing whores on the side or something!"

"We were… I mean, I hadn't… I didn't think Harry had… he never said that he… we were both _virgins_…" Peter stammered.

"That's not the point!" She looked between them both. "There are other reasons to wear condoms besides STDs! Peter, I thought you were _smarter_ than that!"

"We're guys!" Harry choked down the pasta. "Kinda!"

"But they're not very comfortable and we kept forgetting…"

…_and we shouldn't have to, hissed the spider, shouldn't prevent due course…_

"You _two_…" she sighed. "Look, if Harry was getting periods but now he's not…"

"Don't be dumb," Harry snorted, shoveling in more pasta.

"Harry, if you got a period you have to at least consider…"

"Uh, no, I don't," he said, cutting her off.

"Don't you think you should at least take a test or something?" She took a bite of her own serving. "To be on the safe side?"

"Why? Waste of time and money," he said, taking a piece of bread from a basket in the center of the table and soaking up the excess sauce.

"Maybe MJ is right," Peter suggested timidly. "I mean, it wouldn't take much…"

"No!" Harry stood up in a huff and dumped his plate into the sink. "And that's that."

Peter went back to his own plate, withering under a glare from Mary Jane, but neither said any more about it. A few days passed, then a week, and Peter nearly forgot that they'd even had the conversation. School, work and Spider-Man distracted him and pushed the exceedingly awkward talk to the back of his mind.

Then, over a week later, he woke to find the bed unsettlingly empty. Harry almost always slept in later than he did and always ended up winding himself around Peter's body so that his absence was noticeable. Yawning, Peter got up and saw the bathroom door slightly open. He pushed the door open and peeked inside to find Harry leaning into the toilet, vomiting.

"Hey Pete." He looked up and wiped his mouth with a scrap of toilet paper. "You don't suppose I have a stomach flu or something?" He groaned.

"Harry…"

"_Fuck!_" He screamed and leaned over again, puking and sobbing all at once.

Peter supposed he ought to have minded more, been upset at Harry's de facto reliance on him to set aside time whenever he had one of his myriad breakdowns. But Peter found that, even after almost a year of it, he didn't mind. Secretly, he rather liked it; it gave him an excuse to be close to Harry without feeling like an imposition. As much as Harry wanted Peter near, Peter wondered if he didn't want excuses to be near him just as badly, if he didn't want to be wanted.

Of course, this situation would have been different; he would have been there no matter what. But this time, like every other time, it gave him the smallest erotic jolt to see Harry needy and turning to him.

"Come on Harry, it'll be alright. We're going to get through this."

"This can't be happening, I didn't think… Oh God!" He heaved again.

"It'll be alright, don't worry, don't worry," Peter repeated, massaging his back and brushing his hair out of the way.

"Peter…!" He moaned and Peter gathered him close and found a silver lining in the dark clouds of Harry's frightened expression.

OOO


	15. Return

~*~

With all that had happened, Harry had expected to feel worse. And in a way he did. He was frightened, uncertain, and keenly aware that he was withdrawn. But these weren't the feelings – or perhaps it would be better to say the _instincts_ – of the presence that had been lurking in his mind since his father's experimentation.

The spider was _happy_.

In fact, Mary Jane was probably the most upset out of any of them. She'd kept demanded of them how it had happened (as if she wasn't at all familiar with biology) and how they could have been so careless (as if she wasn't fully aware that neither of them was exactly all together any more) and why they weren't doing something about it (as if their instincts would have permitted that). Peter had been nervous and fluttery with sympathy, but once he got the sense that Harry wasn't horribly upset he'd settled down. Harry liked to think that whatever was instinctual and spider-like inside of his best friend had been secretly pleased as well, even if he wasn't comfortable enough with that part of his identity to openly admit it.

Harry got up and found Peter gone for the day and Mary Jane off to work, so he bathed, dressed, took the vitamins that Peter had recommended and started to set things in order around the house. He smiled and thought about his body, his fingers ghosting down his torso. It was rather like having a beautiful secret, something Peter had given to him. He laughed as he loaded the dishwasher; if that was his line of thinking, the second X chromosome did have a lot of sway.

He closed the dishwasher carefully and was about to start with when he heard a thump and froze. There was a sound like a footfall and he looked up at the clock. Peter wasn't supposed to be home for another few hours, but he might have come back between classes if something had happened to get his costume torn up, Harry reasoned.

"Peter?" He walked through the doorway but saw and heard nothing more. "You in here?"

His instincts started to tingle slightly and he braced himself, on edge. Then they jarred him without warning and he spun around with a jump, only to find himself suddenly pressed by his throat up against a wall.

"No as quick as Peter, are we son?" A gauntleted hand tightened around his throat. "He would have never fallen so easily."

Harry lifted his hands to web Norman's mask but chemicals sprayed out of his wrists and onto Harry's face before he was able to move. His head lolled to the side and Norman laughed. Easier than expected, but then it always was with Harry. He allowed the boy to slide to the floor while he stepped into the other room and replace a pumpkin bomb on their bed. He sneered at the disgusting nature of it all before going back to Harry and throwing him over his shoulder.

He took off for his new local and settled down to wait.

~*~

Harry awoke in an unfamiliar place but a familiar position, locked up behind a wall of material that looked deceptively like glass but notwhere near as easy to shatter.

"This is getting old, isn't it?" He muttered. "Why don't' we just skip the part where Peter kicks your ass and let me go right now? You know I'm not going to listen to you, not now. Maybe back when I was a stupid kid and thought I could get you to love me, but not now."

"You are still a stupid kid," Norman chastised. "And always will be. But I'm not letting you go any more than someone would go fishing with an empty hook. There's only a few ways to get Spider-Man's attention and you're one of them."

"Peter's not dumb. He's going to know it's a trap."

"Of course he isn't dumb," Norman laughed. "Why do you think I wanted him for a son instead? I wouldn't have wanted him if he was a moron like you. But trap or not, he will come because he cares about you and that makes him stupid enough to try a rescue even if he's aware it's a trap."

"He's still better than _you_," Harry asserted. "He's won every time before. He will again."

"He won because I underestimated!" Norman screamed. "That's not going to happen again! I've learned more than a trick or two in my time away and I won't make the same mistakes."

"No, you'll make new ones," Harry laughed.

"Too stupid for your own good Harry," Norman snapped. "I'm doing you a favor because, stupid as you are, you are after all family. And I do have some affection for you." He leered at him in a way that made Harry's stomach drop and his body shudder. "Keep it up though and I can make thing a lot more uncomfortable."

Harry paused, considering, then crouched down into a corner.

"Peter is going to come for me, you know," he murmured. "You can't keep pulling the same trick over and over and expect it to work."

"Of course he's coming. I'm counting on him coming. Otherwise the plan doesn't work." Norman had divested himself of his body armor and prepped a syringe, which he then carefully inserted into his arm. "And when he does I'll be more than ready for him. But enough talk about Peter. How have you been Harry?" He smirked. "Getting along well? Don't anything to the penthouse? Oh that's right, you don't have it, do you?"

"Screw off," he mumbled as Norman chuckled.

"What I wouldn't give to see you, scrambling to make a living for the first time in your miserable, lazy little life."

"We get along fine."

"Yes, I could tell. Your adopting of the Peter Parker chic, complete with cheap torn shirts and stained jeans was a real indication of how far you've both managed to come."

"We were fine. We were _happy._"

"Not any more," Norman retorted smugly. "Don't worry, though. Perhaps you can learn to be happy with me. I might even let you live, if you do."

~*~

"Harry?" Peter's voice was muffled by his mask as he crawled in through the window. "Harry, you still here?" He pulled the costume off and looked around, before his gaze was drawn to the bed. "Oh God," he whispered, his body frozen as he looked at the object on the bed in distrust. It didn't look as though it was going to explode but he wondered if he ought to throw it out the window just in case. But if Norman had left any indication of where he was going to be, it was probably on the pumpkin.

Gingerly, he lifted it up with a line of webbing and carefully pulled it close to get a better look at it. It was neither of those options, it seemed. Instead, it was simply a pumpkin, a mock, a tease to let him know that he had been here and easily taken what he wanted, that Harry had been defenseless and now he was gone, taken to who knows where.

He wouldn't be extremely hard to find, Peter knew. Norman had left the pumpkin; he wanted to be found eventually. But he wanted to torture Peter with uncertainty first, let him fret over not knowing where Harry was or what Norman was doing to him. Gritting his teeth, Peter flung the pumpkin against the opposite wall where it smashed with a splatter, then pulled his costume back on to go on patrol and search for his friend.

The search that evening ended up fruitless, however. As did the one the next night and the night after that. Peter started dropping classes to swing across more sections of the city, more abandoned buildings and collapsing structures in bad parts of town. It might be small, after all, might be anything a room was really all Norman needed, something he'd been able to hide easily enough in the lush but limited space he'd had in the penthouse. Peter hoped his senses would be a guide, but so far they were proving useless, to distant to be of any real use.

Harry's place of employment called and asked for him, but each time Peter hung up, his face clouding over at their questions of where Harry was. Mary Jane looked at him with apprehension each time this happened.

"Still no sign?" She would whispered.

"Nothing." Peter's fists would clench and unclench. "He wants me to find him. He wouldn't have left anything otherwise."

"Maybe he only wanted you to know so that you would do this," Mary Jane pointed out. "Beat yourself up incessantly."

"He doesn't want me upset," Peter snapped. "He wants me dead, probably wants us both dead. But I'm not about to allow that to happen." He looked at her with a fierce, clouded gaze. "I'll kill him first."

Then he walked out of the room without another word to resume his continual search. Mary Jane sat alone at the table, wondering if it would have been her if she and Peter had continued their relationship. Wondered if it would be her, one day, if he eventually killed Harry and needed somebody new to target.

Being a hero was hard, she knew from watching Peter. But it was just as hard being the one left at home, the one to sit up and worry and get taken whenever someone needed to torture the hero or draw him out of hiding. Peter's life was hard, but she thought that perhaps they'd all gotten a rather shoddy deal in the end as a result of his circumstances and his choices.

~*~

Norman waited for Peter to come. He'd been increasingly obvious over the past few days, allowing himself to be spotted intermittently before disappearing, bringing the circle closer and closer to where he was set up. It had been fun while it lasted, after all, but the game was getting old. And as much as he enjoyed the thought of Peter spending anguished, sleepless nights, he couldn't delay forever or else the boy would slip through his fingers once again.

The window behind him shattered and there was a thump.

"I was beginning to think you weren't coming," he said. Though his face was covered he knew Peter could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Where is he? Where's Harry!"

"Him? Oh, I've moved him. You're not walking out of here alive and frankly I wasn't planning on letting him get away either. Was going to kill him in front of you, you know. Just to make it fun. But it turns out I'm going to need him for a while longer."

"What does that mean?" Peter snapped, but Norman could hear the fear in his voice and he relished it.

"I think you know," he said in his best patronizing tone. "He's changed, hasn't he? Much more useful for... certain activities. So much like his mother. And more than that, you didn't tell me he had a little something baking in the oven. I'm disappointed. Not letting the grandfather know? How very uncivil."

Peter shot out webbing, but Norman grabbed the lines and used them to smash Peter's body against the wall before smashing him further into the concrete of he building with the full force of his own body.

"_Where's Harry!?"_ Peter screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Like I'm going to tell you. Don't worry, he's nice and safe for now. Will be for the next couple of months too. Got to keep him healthy, you know, keep him close and comfy. Then you know what's going to happen? I'm going to touch him, hold him, then take a knife and cut the little growth right out of him. Homemade C-Section, not that he would have any other way to deliver. And then, while I take your kid off and raise it as my own lovely little goblin, he's going to bleed and bleed and bleed until he finally bleeds out and crumples to the ground dead.

"Except you'll be dead too, by then, and there will be nobody to bury him. He'll rot and get picked at by the bird and the dogs. And maybe if he's really fortunate, somebody will find his miserable corpse and the whole world will get to see that mutilated, freakish, fuckable body of his." Norman Punched Peter's face, stepped on his stomach to keep him down, and pressed him into the floor. "Think he'll cry for you before he dies? Call out for the lover that abandoned him and their child because he wasn't strong enough?"

Furious, Peter shot out a ling of webbing and yanked himself out from under Norman, his arms feeling like they would give and toppling Norman in the process. He jumped onto the wall just as he heard the rev of Norman's glide and with a blast, there were both through the wall and out into the New York City night, tumbling and contorting in the air in acrobatics that each intended to end in death.

~*~

A/N: So it's my 8 year anniversary on ff net, hence this update plus a few (hopefully quite a few) others in celebration. :) This story will be wrapping up pretty soon (probably the next chapter) and while I've had trouble finding its rhythm I hope you've enjoyed it. See you next chapter for the finale and if you'd leave a reply on how you enjoyed it, what you'd like to see in the end, happy or sad, and what you'd like to see for upcoming stories, I'd appreciate it!


	16. Valedictory

~*~

Peter Parker had never, by nature, been a violent person, and even after all of Norman's pushing him to the absolute limit, he was doubtful as to whether or not he could have gone so far as to kill him. But Harry's physiology and it's proximity to Peter had been working on Peter for months, shifting him, if to a lesser extent. Harry was _his_ and Norman had taken him; therefore, Norman had to pay.

He whipped around a corner and swung so that he landed on the back of the glider, forcing Norman to crash on to of a roof. He grabbed Norman's head and smashed it into the ground several times until Osborn managed to lacerate Peter's chest with a backwards motion. He kicked Peter away and then threw a bomb at him, but Peter was easily able to snag it and send it flying back at Norman. Then once his own bomb had blown up in his face, Peter grabbed him by one arm and webbed away with another. He arced through the sky and at the apex of the arc he threw Norman downwards as hard as he was able, watching his body bounce on the way down.

He swooped down to see if he was dead, but Osborn was lying in wait for him and Peter's spider-sense barely went off in time for him to dodge another barrage of bombs. When all of the smoke and rubble had cleared, he saw that Osborn had called his glider to him and was flying away as quickly as he could, arms around his midriff as he staunched a wound.

Peter followed Norman's speeding glider, crossing corners so quickly that he thought he might throw up from the nausea. Norman disappeared around a corner of an alley, the buildings packed together so tightly that they formed a labyrinth. Whipping from building to building in a frenzy, Peter looked around to see where Norman might have disappeared to, until he eventually noticed an open window. Landing on the building's roof, he crawled down the wall and peered inside. There was nothing in the room he saw, but there was a greenish glow coming from down the hall.

He crept down the hall until a sudden scream issued from the room.

"_PETER!" _

He ran into the room and burst onto a scene of Norman Osborn, standing in front of the fettered body of his son, leering in triumph with his hand still clenched in a fist.

"If I can't have him, nobody will," Norman hissed.

"I'll kill you!" Peter screamed and launched himself at Norman, pummeling him.

"Too late!" Norman crowed. "Too late for me, but too late for him!"

Peter was deaf to his words, however, and kept punching the older man as his body went increasingly slack. Then he saw the goblin glider sitting off to the side and used his webbing to snag it. Standing up, he gripped the glider and brought it down on Norman again and again and again, until his moving ceased all together and blood was pooled around him.

Numb, he threw aside the machinery, stepped over the corpse and went to Harry, ripping off his mask as he stopped in front of the beaten boy.

"Pete," he breathed. "Dad said you'd come."

"Yeah, I came." He touched his face and noticed that his features were bruising severely, his lips were cracked and there was a line of vomit streaked down from his mouth. "Let's get your out of those, okay?"

"Peter, there's something you need to…"

"Don't worry," he saw, going over to a console and releasing the manacles. He went over and caught Harry before he fell into the pool of blood and vomit that had gathered at his feet. "I've got you."

"Something's wrong, Pete," he groaned. "He made me… I had to…"

Peter looked down and saw that Harry's crotch was a vivid red. "Harry, that's too much, that's not normal!" He looked at his eyes. "What did he do?"

"As soon as he got back," Harry gasped, "he gave me something. Made me swallow a bunch of pills, injected me with something right before beating me. He said they'd take effect right before you got here. He said… he said they were going to kill me." He voice trembled. "He kept punching me in the stomach, Peter, I think he was…"

"Calm down Harry and breathe. Where are the medications he administered?"

Harry managed to point as his face screwed up in pain and his scream jarred Peter while he was frantically looking through the bottles and syringes Norman had discarded onto the counter. There was a diverse collection of drugs, but mostly, Peter noted with a sick feeling, anticoagulants and abortifacients. Even without knowing the purpose of the drugs, there were enough bottles and syringes there to make an overdose highly likely. He turned and saw Harry who was clutching his torso and trembling.

"Peter, something's wrong inside of me," he whispered.

"We need to get you to a hospital, now," Peter snapped. "I'm going to try and lift you and get you there as quickly as…"

"No!" Harry screamed. "Don't!"

"Harry, he induced an abortion and gave you blood thinners. And the beating was probably intended to cause further internal bleeding. This isn't something I can help with. You need medical attention now or you are going to die. You're going to have to have a transfusion, have your stomach pumped, they'll need to give you something to make you clot…"

"And my kid?"

"Already gone, probably," Peter whispered. "He gave you way more than anybody should ever… we're wasting time." He slid his arm behind Harry's head. "Try and hold on and I'll do my best not to hurt you."

"_No!"_ Harry screamed loud crying and wrenching himself out of Peter's grasp. He clumsily backed away, streaking blood across the floor as he did. "I'm not going anywhere. They'll _see_."

Peter's limbs felt heavy as he straightened up and looked down at Harry, frightened and hemorrhaging faster and faster. "Harry," he said slowly, "I don't think you understand. You are going to die if we don't go now."

Harry swallowed. "I understand," he whispered. "And I'm… I'm so tired, Pete," he said shaking his head. "I'm tired and in pain and I've lost my child because I couldn't keep him from taking me." His body shook with his sobs. "He fucked me, you know that? Said I was the next best thing to mom, said that I owed him because I'd killed her. He laughed and said we'd never be together again."

"We won't be!" Peter felt himself growing desperate, not sure how to handle Harry's reluctance. "Harry, if you let him get away with this, he wins!"

"I lose no matter what. I've already lost. Maybe I lost the moment I was born with Norman Osborn as my father. But no matter what, I won't be laughed at. And I'm tired of the memories, Pete, and being afraid and feeling like a freak. It's too much and I can't carry the weight of that anymore. Everything has been hell for weeks and I only want it to end. I'm sorry to go before you. I'm sorry you'll miss me. If you love me, though, you'll give me this last bit of dignity. Hide me. Hide _this_. Don't let anybody know, don't let anybody see."

For a long moment, Peter didn't move. Then he knelt next to Harry and took him in his arms.

"I'll make you comfortable at least," he murmured.

"I'm sorry to put this on you," Harry cried as he clutched Peter's shirt. Peter only nodded and started pulling down Harry's pants so he would be less constricted and wouldn't have to feel the blood-soaked cloth against his skin. "To ask you to live while I take this way out. I was always a coward Pete, and selfish enough to ask you to forgive me for it, even now."

"You were my best friend. And I loved you," Peter replied.

"Past tense already?" Harry smiled bitterly. "Kiss me."

Peter did, working his way from Harry's forehead, down to his neck, his lips. "Are you comfortable?"

"I feel like my insides are collapsing," he admitted. "But I'm glad you're here."

Peter nodded and stroked Harry's curls. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner."

"He would have found a way to kill me no matter what," Harry whispered. "And I think I always knew that." He fumbled for Peter's hand. "I want you to promise me something else Peter."

"Yeah?"

"Move on." He looked up at him, his eyes already glazing over and shining with pain. "Miss me, cry, do whatever you have to, but I'm not worth being depressed your whole life for and I never was. Find a girl or a guy and when you do, don't think about me. You weren't even sure… we didn't even know if it was love or instinct. So don't think about it, don't worry about it."

"You were my mate," Peter whispered in a deep voice that was edged with the feral tone of something animal. "That was more than I ever had with anybody else."

"You'll find something better," Harry assured him. "Something not so abysmally fucked up as our relationship was. I hope you do. I want you to, want to believe that you're not going to suffer under the weight of being a hero, under all of the responsibility you put on yourself. Don't let me die thinking you're going to be miserable."

"I'll try not to be," Peter said with a smile that was more pain than hope. "But I… you were… you _are_ my best friend."

"And you were mine. But I have to go now Peter. I have to leave. Hold me as I leave?"

"Hold you forever." Peter took his friend's still-bleeding body into his arms and felt Harry's heartbeat against his own chest. Harry held on as the beats grew slower and fainter until, with a last shuddering breath, he exhaled and his body went slack. Peter squeezed a final time and then lowered him slowly to the floor. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Sorry I couldn't give you anything better than this."

Pulling his mask back on, he found Norman's stash of pumpkin bombs. Lining them up, he rigged them to explode on a timer, close enough to the bodies of both Harry and his father that they were sure to be destroyed and leave few to no remains behind. It would be just the way Harry had wanted it, the last insufficient gift he could give the man he'd loved.

His job completed, he webbed away just as the building exploded in on itself. A fire broke out and, as he drew close to home, he heard sirens wailing in the direction of the destruction. He'd hoped nobody had seen him; all he needed was another tragedy for Jameson to blame him for. He felt guilty enough already without the city's censure.

He reached the house, wondering if they had found Harry yet or if he was simply going to be buried in the ash. His missing person's file would be closed and a plot could be found, a stone erected. And that would be all Peter had left, an empty grave and the memory of Harry's last shuddering gasps as he bled out and his shame kept him from being helped.

Once he landed on the fire escape, Peter slipped in quietly and hoped that Mary Jane wouldn't be there or wouldn't notice. He was hardly in a mood for explanations or commiseration. Climbing in through the window, he took off his mask and found himself in their room; only now it was his and his alone, a thought that caused bile to well in his throat.

One by one, Peter emptied the drawers and the closet of old clothes of Harry's that he'd been keeping for weeks. He threw them on the bed, the last remainders of Harry's scent still lingering on them, and lay down in the pile, cocooning himself in the fabric that held the minutest traces of his forever-absent companion.

The next morning he would burn them, he promised himself. But before that, he would indulge himself in one last dream that Harry would be there by his side, waiting when he woke up, cheerful despite everything and loving through it all. He should be, Peter thought, allowed that much at least.

~*~

A/N: So that's the end of this story and to be honest I'm a little relieved. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted it and I think all my P/H has been pretty lackluster lately. I might start another AU shortly (plan is to have a BND-style ending to the third movie where Peter is asked for his power instead of his marriage, eventually forcing Peter to choose between two realities). For now, though, I'm glad this one's over. Hope you enjoyed it and that you'll leave your thoughts behind of what you liked, disliked, what I could improve and what you'd like to see next.


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